By Ryan Weeks on Wednesday 19 April 2017
Banking app Revolut announces latest fintech partnership.
Revolut, the banking challenger best-known for its fee-free money exchange tool, has partnered with online mortgage broker Trussle. The two firms’ integration will allow Revolut’s 360,000 UK users to secure or switch mortgages through the app.
Trussle is an online service which is built to strip the hassle out of seeking a mortgage. The technology searches thousands of products from over 90 lenders to quickly find the best deal for prospective borrowers. First-time borrowers and existing home-owners can use Trussle to find out what they can afford to borrow in near enough real-time, and can receive a printable “mortgage in principle” in less than five minutes.
Trussle will also monitor outstanding mortgages and notify users if they ought to consider switching to another product or provider. According to Trussle, more than three million mortgage borrowers in the UK are currently on a standard variable rate, which means they’re paying an average of £3,500 above the best fixed rate deal each year.
“We’re delighted to partner with Revolut who, like us, believe that technology can be used to drastically improve the financial well-being of millions of people,” said Ishaan Malhi, founder and CEO of Trussle.
The Trussle partnership is the latest in a string of aggressive expansion moves from Revolut. In the last few months alone the firm has launched its current account offering, has partnered with peer-to-peer lender Lending Works on an instant credit product and with Bricklane on a property investment product, in addition to having launched a new premium subscription service which, among other things, is essentially an attempt to eat TransferWise’s lunch.
Launched as recently as 18 months ago, Revolut now boasts over 600,000 users globally.
Those users will be able to make use of Trussle’s services without ever leaving the Revolut app. This seems to be Revolut’s modus operandi, mirroring the deep integration between the app and Lending Works.
Digital banking challengers increasingly have the look of nexus-like entities within the wider world of fintech. Most begin with a super-simple, hyper-intuitive product – like currency exchange or a current account. But the race to scale demands product expansion, and the favoured method seems to be to aggregate a range of best-in-class fintech solutions. Starling Bank, a rival to Revolut, has announced partnerships with TransferWise and MoneyBox in the past month alone.
The winner in this race is anyone’s guess, but choosing the right fintech partners could be a crucial factor.
