Europe’s biggest neobank, Revolut, has moved a step closer to its goal of becoming a super-app by adding a new marketplace for booking tours and attractions yesterday.
Users in Europe and the UK can now book activities like sightseeing and food tours, outdoor experiences and museum visits directly in the app, a function the fintech is calling Revolut Experiences. The company says there are over 300k experiences that users can book through the app.
Revolut will not charge a booking fee for the offering. Standard users will get 3% cashback on bookings; users on Revolut’s most costly monthly plans will get 10% cashback.
The super-app race
Revolut has struggled of late with a senior staff exodus and UK banking licence woes, but the fintech hasn't given up on its ambition of becoming a global super-app. When people say “super-app”, they’re mostly thinking of east Asian behemoths like China’s WeChat and Grab in Indonesia, which are one-stop shops for users do everything from ordering food and shopping for clothes to making payments and chatting with friends.
In Europe, Revolut is the only neobank that’s close to this kind of product, offering everything from crypto and equity investment to airport lounge passes. With 30m users globally, Revolut also has far more customers than any other European neobank.
Its competition for super-app status in Europe comes mainly from scaleups in other sectors, like buy now, pay later unicorn Klarna and mobility giant Bolt. Klarna and Bolt have 150m users each.
These companies want to build super-apps to get customers using their products and services more. A survey conducted last year by PYMNTS and Paypal found that 41% of consumers surveyed in Australia, Germany, the UK and the US would increase their banking activities if they had one app for all their banking and payment needs.
