Revolut no longer wants to just manage your money. The British neobank, known for its online accounts and travel features, is now launching mobile plans in the UK and Germany. The principle is simple: unlimited calls, texts, and internet in the country, roaming (20 GB from the EU and the US for the UK, 40 GB for Germany), no commitment, and all this for £12.50 per month at launch, around €14.50.
Shaking up a well-established market
This new service is integrated directly into the Revolut app. Users can activate their line in minutes, track their usage, choose a new number or keep their existing one, and even pay with their loyalty points, "RevPoints." The idea is to make mobile phone use as simple and seamless as account management.
For Revolut, this is a natural extension. After launching a very popular eSIM for travelers in 2024, the company is going further with a real mobile offering. It hopes to attract users tired of incumbent operators, their hidden fees, their incomprehensible interfaces, and their often sluggish customer service.
Revolut is not building its own antennas. It is becoming a virtual operator (MVNO), renting the infrastructure of one or more major networks (the names have not yet been announced). This allows it to enter the market quickly, without having to invest in equipment.
"The mobile sector needed change," asserts Hadi Nasrallah, Revolut's telecom general manager. "This is a new step for Revolut in the world of consumer telecoms, an area where innovation is long overdue, and we look forward to offering this service in other countries very soon." France in the crosshairs? The launch comes at an interesting time. In the UK, the market is in full swing with the planned merger between Vodafone and Three. And other brands that have nothing to do with telecoms, such as Octopus (energy), also want to launch their own plans. With more than 10 million users in the UK and 2 million in Germany, Revolut is starting with a good cushion. But it hasn't won the game yet. The quality of service will depend on its network partners, and mobile isn't as forgiving as banking: a line outage is hard to forgive. Not to mention regulations, like those on data or roaming post-Brexit.
Still, Revolut is playing for big. If it works, it could really become the super-app it dreams of being: an app for everything, including making calls.
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