Bank fee for loading Rand on Revolut

fionaem

I loaded ZAR onto my Revolut card using my Lloyds’s debit card and was astounded when they charged me 2.99% for the privilege!  

I’ve taken this up with Lloyds as on MSE it states ‘if you are buying and topping up currency on a prepaid card always use a debit card which isn’t allowed to charge this fee’. 

Has anyone else experienced this?

TheMilkmansDad

Llyods or Revolut charged you 2.99% - it's not clear from the above.

If Lloyds (which I suspect it is) then you should have transferred GBP to Revolut and convert to ZAR there. If you've asked Lloyds to transfer ZAR then I suspect there would have been a charge which is what appears to have happened here.

fionaem

Yes it was Lloyds which charged me

On Revolut prepaid card you get the option to have GBP EUR USD ZAR plus 20 or so other currencies. I chose to load Rand to have a Rand account.  I paid Revolut in GBP hence my surprise that Lloyds charged me a non-GB transfer fee. 

I will look into if Revolut can convert it to ZAR. Normally I just load GBP on Revolut and get their excellent exchange rates but I’m not travelling for a few weeks and the ZAR rate is particularly high at the moment so I had hoped to take advantage of that but Lloyds have scuppered that!

eDicky

If you loaded directly to your Revolut ZAR account with GBP using Lloyds debit card I would be astounded if Lloyds didn't charge you the non-sterling fee. Load GBP as normal and convert to Rand within Revolut.

fionaem

Yes I’ve realised this now. Expensive lesson learned. Annoyingly I made an initial small transfer and no fees showed so I proceeded with a larger amount the fees appeared a day later - I also took this up with Lloyds who said it can take up to 2 days to appear. 

It is confusing on MSE as they say banks are not allowed to charge a ‘fee’ if using a debit card. 

Plenty of other banks don’t charge foreign currency transactions so I’ll be moving to one of them. 

eskbanker

fionaem said:

It is confusing on MSE as they say banks are not allowed to charge a ‘fee’ if using a debit card.

That's not what they're saying, they're just saying that they can't charge the cash withdrawal fee that credit cards do:

• Charges for topping up your prepaid card with a credit card. There's a hidden charge you could fall foul of if you're using a credit card to pay for and to top up your prepaid card.
  
  Buying currency on a prepaid card is counted as a cash withdrawal, so you could face a myriad of fees, including cash withdrawal fees, interest, or even a fee for using a credit card charged by the money changer.
  
  Therefore, if you're buying and topping up currency on a prepaid card, ALWAYS use a debit card, which isn't allowed to charge this fee.

but they're not saying that debit cards can't charge non-sterling transaction fees.

fionaem

Ok thanks for clarification- it may be helpful if you last sentence was added to warn others. 

 
Once had been charged I searched high and low to find out the situation regarding using a debit card and nowhere could I find clarification on possible costs of loading with a debit card. 

There is nothing I could find on Revolut’s website advising banks may charge if loading with a debit card - maybe everyone else know this!

its my mistake. as I was buying ZAR from Revolut and they said no fees I hadn’t made the connection that they would be ‘buying’ ZAR from Lloyds - I presumed transaction was in GBP   It was also compounded by the delay in Lloyds adding their charges on my trial run.

Que será. I now know

eskbanker

fionaem said:

Ok thanks for clarification- it may be helpful if you last sentence was added to warn others. 

 
Once had been charged I searched high and low to find out the situation regarding using a debit card and nowhere could I find clarification on possible costs of loading with a debit card. 

There is nothing I could find on Revolut’s website advising banks may charge if loading with a debit card - maybe everyone else know this!

its my mistake. as I was buying ZAR from Revolut and they said no fees I hadn’t made the connection that they would be ‘buying’ ZAR from Lloyds - I presumed transaction was in GBP   It was also compounded by the delay in Lloyds adding their charges on my trial run.

Que será. I now know

Although the article is aimed at those who are actually spending abroad, Lloyds do clarify that the fee is charged for non-sterling purchases, so if you were paying for a transaction denominated in ZAR (or was there a sterling figure quoted by Revolut?) then this applies:

If you use your debit card to make a purchase in a currency other than pounds, the amount is converted to pounds on the day it is processed by Visa using the Visa Payment Scheme exchange rate. We will charge you a foreign currency transaction fee of 2.99% of the amount of the transaction, this is a fee for currency conversion.

https://www.lloydsbank.com/travel/debit-card-abroad.html