First Person
How to buy online in sterling
After opening an online bank account in sterling, Pat Fitzpatrick learns he has developed an addiction to gambling on the currency markets
Idownloaded a new app recently and ended up addicted to foreign exchange. The app in question is Revolut, a recent addition to the electronic-banking world. One of its founders is a Russian-born investment banker, who worked in Lehman Brothers before it went bust. That only seems dodgy until you consider the recent history of our own banks.
Revolut gives you a virtual current account with zero foreign-exchange fees. It might be of interest if you travel a lot, or get paid in a currency other than euro. But that’s not why I was interested in it.
Cheap holiday
I wanted it to pay for my holiday. The place I was looking at in Spain allowed me to pay in sterling or euro on its website, and the sterling price was about €150 cheaper when I did the conversion. That gap looked like it could widen, because the pound went for a nosedive every time Boris Johnson opened his mouth. All I needed was a card to let me pay in sterling.
A quick search on the web led me to Revolut. I loaded the app on my phone, and was set up and ready to go in five minutes. I transferred the money for my holiday from my Irish bank and tried to convert it to sterling in the app. That’s when my problem started.
The problem was that the conversion rate changes every second. Which meant the euro price of my holiday changed every second. Which meant I couldn’t book my holiday.
The first day I started using it, sterling went down the toilet and took another tenner off the price of my holiday. Obviously, I didn’t convert my euros to sterling in the app that day, because sterling would continue to slide the next day and my holiday would get even cheaper. Except it didn’t. Sterling rallied the next morning, Dunkirk and all that, and I ended up watching my holiday
“I’d check the price of sterling when I woke up, and every five seconds after that”
getting more expensive by the second. We’re only talking a few euros, but that’s not the point.
The point is, I started getting a weird buzz from this currency-fluctuation thing. I’d check the price of sterling (and my holiday) when I woke up, and every five seconds after that. After five days, I started to spot a pattern. The traders arrive first thing every morning, full of shame for the way they treated sterling the day before. At this point, sterling starts to rise, and the main story on the Daily Mail website changes to: “Everything is going to be fine. Up yours, Brussels”.
The rise continues until lunchtime, when the traders go down the pub for four pints and a spot of dwarf-tossing. This seems to change their mood, because sterling goes on the slide for the rest of the day. The headline on Daily Mail changes to: “Megan shows CBB fling Kyle what he’s missing in skimpy bikini. Up yours, Brussels”.
Pattern or no pattern, I still couldn’t bring myself to commit and convert my euros. My worry was that two seconds after making the conversion, Boris would say something crazy about Gibraltar, sterling would tank, and I’d be unable to ride that baby all the way to the bottom. (And, no, I don’t mean Boris. Seriously, don’t be so disgusting.)
I told the wife I’d become addicted to gambling on foreign currencies, and while there was some sympathy there, she pointed out she was looking forward to a fortnight on the Costa Brava. So, eventually I set myself a target rate of 92.2p, converted at that rate, and booked the holiday.
Life felt a bit empty after that, so I started looking for fresh online bargains with my Revolut card. The good news is it lets me purchase in a variety of currencies. So, in the unlikely event that Britain sees sense on Brexit and sterling stabilises, I can switch to pricing stuff in dollars, and wait for Donald Trump to say something crazy. (That will be a short wait.)