{"id":225149,"date":"2025-12-10T07:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T07:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/225149\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T07:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T07:27:08","slug":"pearse-doherty-is-more-right-about-revolut-and-crypto-than-he-realises-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/225149\/","title":{"rendered":"Pearse Doherty is more right about Revolut and crypto than he realises \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone who has sat through an Oireachtas<\/a> committee could be forgiven for feeling some admiration for the four digital banks that did not show up<\/a> for the finance committee\u2019s hearing last week. <\/p>\n

The apparent disdain of the banks was in its own way refreshing. Kowtowing to the people\u2019s elected representatives with their inane questions on the regulatory oversight of neobanks was not for them. Leave that sort of thing to the legacy banks. <\/p>\n

It turns out, however, that the reason for the no show was a little more prosaic. Their invitations were sent to the wrong people and in the case of one bank to a non-functioning email. Two of the banks, Revolut<\/a> and Monzo<\/a>, have indicated they will be available at a later date, possibly in January. The other two, Bunq<\/a> and N26<\/a>, will probably also pitch up. <\/p>\n

The hearing went ahead with just the representatives of the Central Bank of Ireland<\/a>. If the banks watch the meeting on the Oireachtas website, they will have some idea of what they will be up against. They could be forgiven for thinking they have little to fear. <\/p>\n

The committee members seemed preoccupied with the issue of why you can never get a human being on the phone at one of these banks. Another member queried whether the Bank of Lithuania was good for the \u20ac100,000 per person in deposit insurance it underwrites on Revolut accounts. <\/p>\n

According to the Central Bank officials who attended the meeting, it is. They had no answer, however, to another question about whether Revenue can get access to Revolut accounts. <\/p>\n

Amid all of this apparent parochialism Pearse Doherty<\/a>, Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s finance spokesman, asked a question that \u2013 by accident of design \u2013 cut to the very heart of the dilemma neobanks face: how to make money from all their online customers.<\/p>\n

For all the hype around fintech and neobanks, the bricks-and-mortar banks still have the upper hand when it comes to the profitable areas of banking such as mortgages, loans, investments and insurance. For them, current accounts and money transfers are a sort of loss leader. <\/p>\n

The neobanks may have eaten the traditional bank\u2019s lunch in this regard, but they are struggling to get traction in the higher-margin part of the business. Their older rivals are also fighting back with better online offerings of their own and have an advantage as they can often access capital more cheaply than neobanks, which tend to be funded often by venture capital and private equity. <\/p>\n

One of the answers to the monetisation dilemma that neobanks are exploring is cryptocurrency and this was the issue that Doherty raised. Specifically its prominence on Revolut\u2019s platform where it is offered on the app home screen. Doherty highlighted that Revolut has 400,000 customers under 18. <\/p>\n

Revolut\u2019s cryptocurrency dealings are covered by the EU\u2019s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), and you can only buy and sell cryptocurrency via an adult account. <\/p>\n

But Doherty is on to something. The 400,000 customers he mentions will turn 18 some day and when they do Revolut will likely be pushing an open door in Ireland when it comes to selling them cryptocurrency. There is a good chance they will have already gambled online, and it is a small enough step to speculating in cryptocurrency when you turn 18. <\/p>\n

According to the Institute of Public Health, about a quarter of Irish 16-year-olds gamble for money<\/a>. It is the fourth highest rate of the 33 countries surveyed. Of those who gambled, a quarter did it online.<\/p>\n

It is perhaps no coincidence that 18- to 34-year-olds are the group most likely to hold cryptocurrencies in Ireland, according to the Banking & Payments Federation Ireland<\/a>. They account for 16 per cent of cryptocurrency holders. They are also more likely to invest online and rely on friends and family for investment advice rather than regulated financial advisers. <\/p>\n

The links between neobanks and the cryptocurrency sector are numerous. Blockchain, the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies, is used to a greater or lesser extent by all of them. Many of their backers are also heavily invested in the crypto industry. <\/p>\n

For crypto evangelists this is an unquestionably good thing and an inevitable consequence of the direction of travel in banking and cryptocurrency. <\/p>\n

The Central Bank made it clear last week to the finance committee that they did not consider cryptocurrencies to be investments and had very serious concerns about them. The existing regulations are a work in progress rather than the finished article. <\/p>\n

That is not much help to someone who turned 18 in October and used the money sent to them on Revolut by their godparents and relatives to buy bitcoin<\/a> on Revolut. It has dropped by 26 per cent since then. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anyone who has sat through an Oireachtas committee could be forgiven for feeling some admiration for the four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[214,117441,79,22767,10119,18,19,17,23985,117440,4766,9649,10927],"class_list":{"0":"post-225149","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-bitcoin","9":"tag-bunq","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-central-bank-of-ireland","12":"tag-cryptocurrencies","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-monzo","17":"tag-n26","18":"tag-oireachtas","19":"tag-pearse-doherty","20":"tag-revolut"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}