Irish banks tap into card rival

IRELAND’S four main banks are joining forces to launch a new payment card to rival the Revolut card.

The move by AIB, Bank of Ireland, Permanent TSB and KBC Bank is to try and stem the number of customers switching to their British rival.

Revolut – which gives users a real-time record of their spending – claims to have a million customers in Ireland.

The banks started work on the new card six months ago under a project code-named Pegasus, to rival Revolut and Apple Pay.

A spokesman for the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI), which represents the banks, said: ‘The four banks have launched Synch Payment DAC, the aim of which is to deliver a multi-banking payment app that will enable Irish users to send and make payments in real time. This is now a matter for the CCPC (Competition and Consumer Protection Commission) and we await their determination on the application that was made last week.’

Personal finance expert Brendan Burgess, of askaboutmoney.com, who uses a Revolut card, said: ‘If I go into Tesco to buy something, I get a beep on my phone to tell me how much I’ve spent. So if I get a message on my phone now saying, “you’ve just spent €38 in Athens”, I can block my card immediately.’

Revolut also allows customers to round up payments, with the change from a rounded-up purchase going into a savings ‘vault’ which can be built up over time. However, Mr Burgess said there were two downsides to Revolut.

‘One is it’s not a bank, so you’ve got to be stupid to use it as your bank account because if you have €10,000 sitting in your Revolut card account and it goes bust you risk losing your money. But if you lose your €10,000 in AIB, the bank guarantee covers you,’ he said.

In what will be the first joint venture between the main banks for more than 20 years, the new card will be open to all banks and financial institutions to adopt including the credit unions.