Revolut edges one step closer to superapp status with Revolut Chat

Revolut’s new instant messaging feature has arrived to take the awkwardness out of talking about money.

As Revolut runs full force towards truly becoming a superapp, it is now launching an instant messaging feature, Revolut Chat.

In an aim to remove all the awkwardness around talking about money – whether that’s reminding friends to pay for dinner or flatmates to pay their rent – Revolut is keeping all the chats in one place.

No more heading to WhatsApp to send a message, you can now directly chat to other users in the app, and not just share gifs and stickers when sending and receiving money.

“We listened to our customers who said they wanted to be able to discuss and clarify payment details within the app, rather than having to swap between Revolut and different messaging apps to send or receive funds,” Revolut CEO Nikolay Storonsky said.

Two-thirds of people find it difficult to discuss money, according to a recent Revolut survey of about 8,000 people in the UK and Europe.

The hope is that with the new chat feature, some of this awkwardness will be alleviated, with all the discussion of money embedded into the Transfer section.

All messages will have end-to-end encryption and customers can choose to opt-out of the function or disable it completely.

“We want to give our customers more control over their financial well-being through the use of our technology, offering a service that addresses all their financial needs in one place,” Storonsky added.

The service is currently available between users who both have UK or EEA accounts, filling the gap that Venmo fills in the US, bridging the gap between money transfer and social media app.

Revolut will be fully announcing the new feature at the Web Summit in Lisbon, alongside the news that the app has now reached more than one million users in Portugal – 10 per cent of the population.

In the last year, the company has doubled the number of Portuguese customers and employs more than 1,000 people.