Revolut (Multinational* Card Masking Financial Service)

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41

well as @Catalyst2422 put it, a person I am very much sympathizing with

so well have fun disputing fraudulent transactions in your debit card meanwhile we enjoy disposable virtual and virtual debit cards that we can get rid of anytime it gets compromised before further harm happens without needing to call the bank to replace it and assuming they got an up and running 24/7 line and hopefully the line isn’t down by then or very understaffed.
[If you do use credit card yes fraudulent protection is strong here but still]

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42

We don’t have to solve any riddle, it’s not the point.
Nobody stops you to use Revolut if you find it convenient, it’s just not a privacy tool thus it should not be recommended.

Chaining bank accounts and get profiled in the process thinking to gain confidentiality is delusional privacy theater.

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43

To my understanding, the question was not if PG should recommend services to non-US people. It’s if PG should recommend services that are not available in English or exclusive to regions their team doesn’t have access to.

That said, I get your point, and appreciate your effort.

Does this mean that Revolut’s virtual card can’t have a fake name like BUGS BUNNY?

44

I think a few people in this thread have a fundamental misunderstanding of what these services offer.

They are to provide privacy from the merchant. Not from the bank or card provider.

The existing article ( Financial Services - Privacy Guides ) makes it clear that using your bank or credit card providers system is preferable to using a third party service to do this. Revolut is a bank (in some jurisdictions, a payment service provider in others). Privacy.com and MySudo are third party services.

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45

therefore meets the minimum criteria set by privacy guides since also in my experience you dont have to put a real address nor name
And do not give me the “It’s tied to your name” excuse until you have solid evidence, you can enter a fake name to the merchant, period.

46

Don’t know what is your goal, but I wouldn’t name revoult privacy or anonymity app. Maybe better than normal banks in context of freedom of transactions, however many people had still problems with closing accounts without much info why. And of course they know all transactions and irs or other tax authorities still know all transactions, most banks in countries around world have agreements about sharing info of clients transaction

47

when did I call revolut a privacy or anonymity platform? It is about privacy with the merchant and main bank, like privacy.com, like MySudo, it covers specifically to those, not to revolut being private and anonymous please read threads before making posts.
Not mentioning privacy.com and MySudo isn’t any better with privacy.com also requiring KYC regardless

also the goal is already stated, hence the lack of reading the thread, I especially advising reading mine and @Catalyst2422’s posts at the same time.

Revolut meets the minimum criteria for card masking and has been explicitly clear in the financial services section of privayc guides that if your bank provides virtual cards themselves, use that instead so you do not trust another party..

And that’s another one to “Did not read the thread” on the list. I wonder how much I will have of that this year.

And for the love of god let this serve as a reminder to read threads or replies before making posts like that

with that said you do have a valid point, I had a discord whose revolut’s account was closed for no reason if not a non-reasonable one.

and for the transactions, I made that very clear, it is a you (not limited to you, just in general) for not reading the warning and clarification provided

48

I thought the point of that notice is that if the bank you already use offers a virtual card service, its preferred. The way you are writing it makes it sound like Revolut is better because its a bank, which I do not think was the point. If you use Revolut as just a virtual card provider and not as your bank, it does not matter what it is classified as. Possible I just misunderstood.

It seems like the debate is really over how often this occurs in the EU vs the US since it seems like there isn’t much difference between the two, in terms of what information has to be provided, if one happens.

Below is what I could find on the MasterCard version of it, since that seems to be what most Virtual Cards are.

49

Let’s talk a little more about Account Name Inquiry (ANI), because I feel like there needs to be some clarification. I’ve been using Revolut virtual cards for a while, but I was always a bit reluctant — I thought my real name might somehow get transmitted when paying for something. I did some research, and it turns out your cardholder name isn’t exposed to merchants in most cases, unless:

  • you enter your actual name in the checkout form, or

  • the name you enter triggers an ANI (even then, the issuer only returns one of three possible results: match, no‑match, or partial‑match — as a code, so it doesn’t contain your name).

Who actually sees your canonical cardholder name:

  • Issuer (e.g., Revolut) — holds the canonical name and uses it to compare against the supplied name.

  • Card network (e.g., Visa/Mastercard) — routes the inquiry and may process/log the canonical name for routing, fraud, and troubleshooting.

  • Gateway/acquirer systems may carry or temporarily log message fields, but merchants do not get the issuer’s canonical name in the merchant‑facing response.

So theoretically, even if ANI is triggered and you only typed your initials at checkout, your real name on the card is seen only by the issuer and the card network — not the merchant.

Typical flow (who talks to who):
merchant (e.g., Etsy) → payment gateway/processor (e.g., Stripe — receives the PAN and the name you entered, which may start ANI) → acquirer (merchant’s bank — forwards the verification) → card network (e.g., Visa — routes the inquiry) → issuer (e.g., Revolut — checks its record and returns a match code).

Etsy and Stripe, for example, only receive the name you type at checkout (which can be anything). When the issuer performs the check, it returns a match result code (match / no match / partial / unavailable) — it does not forward your issuer‑stored canonical card name to the merchant, gateway, or acquirer in the merchant‑facing response.

Additional nuance: ANI behavior and availability vary by country, issuer, and card network.

So, all in all, it is possible to pay with more privacy using Revolut virtual cards, but in there are caveats (email, billing address, checkout fields, etc…) which can still link transactions to you. I’m not an expert — if you know this area, please confirm or correct anything I missed.

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50

thanks for clarifying, knew that was it:

for billing address it’s the same ANI, it would have to be enabled by the merchant, otherwise You can just put a fake billing address, if a maerchant checks it, it’s either just country or postal code. Still a fake address can be put, same with email you can use an alias, at least in my experience. So that helps with debunking that no it is not tied to your real name and if an Account Name Inquiry does as you can see it’s either match (will contain your name doe), partial or none without containing your name.

checkout fields that varies, privacy but not secrecy wise the similar thing to do is with P.O. Boxes where you only share that P.O. Box but none knows your real address

or

Shipping Proxies but is similar to revolut in a sense you’re trusting them with your address, it’s privacy from the seller but not the proxy. The proxy just handles the order and delivery of the seller with their own information and then forwards it to you, as the buyer. (Again only privacy by the seller but not the proxy). It is a little of a worse option over just handing a P.O. Box of course

51

With billing address it’s easier to put fake details. Only the digits are checked. So 55 My street can be entered as 50 Made up street or Apartment 5, 5 Made up street etc. Though I recommend using a real address that has the same digits. As anti-fraud systems can easily check if an address exists or not. Zip codes it’s a bit trickier depending on the format in your country. But you can still make it work.

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52

So this isn’t international. Not even close. Do they advertise as international? Or that’s only in your title?

53

that’s my title

I can’t really say just “EU” since revolut covers Japan (Asia, I would generally categorize it in asia if Korea is in it but it isn’t), Australia and the UK. so International except the 4 countries and one continent

54

It is also not available in Turkey.

55

oh I completely forgot about turkey honestly, thanks, will address it

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56

Arab countries, African countries completely absent :slight_smile:

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57

Yeah there are many countries not supported. It has much more international coverage than Prviacy.com but it’d be better to just link to which countries they support since it’s quite a lot to include either which ones they cover or which ones they don’t.

58

I’ll put it in the African category then to generalize

59

can confirm:

Supported countries are found here and on the homepage in the country selection

60

Oh I meant removing the preceding sentence:

So maybe it could look like this:

*Revolut has multinational coverage, supported countries are found here and on the homepage in the country selection.