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Revolut Launches in India, Cries Foul Over “Criminal” Forex Fees by Banks

4 Mins Read

Revolut is gearing up for a major push into India’s financial scene, aiming to challenge entrenched banking models and what it calls “criminal” fees on foreign exchange charged by traditional banks. In its India debut, the London-based fintech plans to offer multi-currency wallets, UPI integration, domestic and international Visa cards, and budgeting tools to serve the digital native generation. The company estimates Indians lose roughly $600 million annually in forex fees on $30 billion of cross-border spend. It has secured a prepaid payments instrument licence, acquired the Indian firm Arvog Forex to win regulatory approval, and already has a waitlist of over 350,000 potential users. Revolut hopes to onboard 20 million Indians by 2030 and process at least $7 billion in transactions. Reuters reports Revolut will localize its technology with a £40 million investment to align with India’s data sovereignty rules. Separately, the Reserve Bank of India is exploring reforms to enable real-time forex settlement for domestic banks via GIFT City, which could cut costs and turnaround times for FX transactions.
Sources:
Reuters
,
TechCrunch
Key Takeaways
– Revolut is positioning itself in India as a challenger to traditional banks by spotlighting and promising to undercut high forex fees.
– The fintech has already secured regulatory clearance (prepaid payments licence), made a local acquisition (Arvog), and pledged a sizable localization investment to comply with India’s data rules.
– India’s central banking authorities themselves are eyeing FX settlement reforms (via GIFT City), which could lower barriers for newcomers and reduce friction in currency transactions.
In-Depth
Revolut’s announcement is no small splash—it signals an ambitious tilt into one of the world’s most competitive financial markets, one long dominated by legacy banks uneasy to move on fee structures. What is particularly bold is how Revolut frames its entry: not just as a new player, but as a crusader against what it deems “criminal” practices in forex charging. It tears at a sore point for many Indian consumers and businesses who see hidden markups and opaque conversion spreads every time they deal in cross-border transactions.
To do this, though, Revolut must bridge multiple hurdles. First and foremost is regulation. India’s financial system is tightly guarded. Revolut’s acquisition of Arvog Forex gives it a local foothold and license infrastructure to navigate the regulatory maze. More importantly, its recent guarantee of a prepaid payments instrument (PPI) licence allows it to issue digital wallets and cards domestically—without relying on partnerships that could leave it constrained by a third party’s terms.
Then there’s infrastructure. India’s payments ecosystem, especially UPI (Unified Payments Interface), is deeply entrenched and ubiquitous in domestic day-to-day transactions. By tying into UPI and issuing both domestic and international Visa cards, Revolut aims not just to be a cross-border tool but a comprehensive participant in Indian finance—as an everyday banking supplement or alternative.
Money isn’t cheap, especially in fintech. To localize and comply with India’s data sovereignty mandates, Revolut is reportedly investing tens of millions in adapting its tech stack to Indian law. That’s not a trivial cost—data localisation is expensive, and scaling operations, customer support, and compliance add to the burden.
Yet the potential upside is huge. Revolut estimates Indians spend $30 billion abroad annually, incurring nearly $600 million in implicit banking fees. If Revolut can capture even a fraction of that volume, it opens a route to scale and revenue from both forex spreads and subscription models. The firm targets 20 million users and $7 billion in processed transactions by 2030, ambitions that reflect both the opportunity and the risk.
What could tip the balance further is reform in India’s own regulatory infrastructure. The Reserve Bank of India and the GIFT City authority are pursuing real-time forex settlement reforms for domestic banks, which would drastically reduce settlement delays and costs. Such moves could level the playing field for nonbank players like Revolut by reducing barriers to competitive pricing.
But challenges stand: consumer trust, branding, navigating India’s fragmented financial layers, and fighting incumbents with deep relationships and sometimes lax regulation. Banks won’t stand idle as customers are tempted away. Revolut’s success will depend not just on competitive pricing but reliability, customer experience, and winning regulatory goodwill.
In short, Revolut’s India play is a test of whether a nimble fintech can enter a tightly regulated, fee-heavy environment and shake loose entrenched practices. If it works, it could reshape how Indians think about banking fees and cross-border finance. But the hurdle is high—and the legacy institutions won’t give up their margins without a fight.

Tech

Rise of Teen Cyberattacks Sparks Call to Channel Digital Curiosity

4 Mins Read

Two teenagers, Thalha Jubair (19) and Owen Flowers (18), have been charged over a massive cyberattack on Transport for London (TfL), which reportedly resulted in tens of millions in damages and disrupted critical infrastructure. In response, cybersecurity professionals are sounding alarm bells about a broader trend: an increasing number of tech-savvy youths are gravitating toward illicit hacking, often driven by curiosity and lack of constructive outlets. Experts argue that educational systems and public policy must pivot toward engaging young people with structured ethical hacking programs, digital ethics instruction, and mentorship pathways to redirect their skills into lawful and beneficial directions.
Sources: I
T Pro
,
The Guardian
Key Takeaways
– The TfL cyberattack underscores that critical infrastructure is vulnerable even to relatively young offenders with technical skill.
– Experts believe many youth hackers are motivated less by malice than by curiosity, challenge, and recognition — suggesting preventive potential through positive engagement.
– Education systems and policy must evolve to incorporate digital ethics, cybersecurity training, and opportunities for constructive tech participation to deter criminal paths.
In-Depth
The recent arrests of two teenagers in connection with a cyberattack on Transport for London (TfL) have reverberated across the cybersecurity and policy communities, serving as a stark example of how youthful curiosity can morph into serious digital harm. The attack, attributed to the Scattered Spider group, allegedly inflicted tens of millions of pounds in losses, disrupted service functions like Oyster card access and online tools, and compromised personal data of thousands of customers. While details of the attack remain subject to legal scrutiny, the core narrative is increasingly clear: young people are figuring out how to hack, sometimes with minimal oversight, and the consequences can be enormous.
But it isn’t just this case that has caught attention. Observers point to a pattern: the average age of cybercrime defendants is trending downward, and many of these young actors appear less like hardened criminals and more like curious coders testing boundaries. As one commentary put it, “teen hackers aren’t the problem — they’re the wake-up call.” In other words, instead of treating youth hacking as simply a criminal issue, we might view it as a systemic signal that traditional educational and societal structures are failing to offer meaningful paths for digital talent and interest.
From that perspective, the response shouldn’t be only punitive, but also preventive and constructive. Experts in the ITPro article argue for embedding digital ethics and cybersecurity training into core curricula, giving students supervised outlets like capture-the-flag competitions or open-source projects. For some youths, the thrill lies not in wrongdoing, but in the challenge. Absent structured guidance, they may gravitate toward illicit experimentation. The harder question is: how do we design schooling, mentorship, and policy frameworks that recognize — and harness — this technical aptitude rather than suppressing it?
Several education and computer science researchers have explored this. Programs that let teenagers experiment with real cybersecurity tools in safe, controlled environments have shown promising results: participants tend to deepen their interest in cybersecurity and better understand digital risk. Initiatives that gamify security learning, adopt “cyber ranges,” or emphasize realistic, hands-on tasks can be scaled to schools and communities. But for those endeavors to work broadly, public and private actors — schools, government, industry — must align around funding, curriculum reform, teacher preparation, and oversight.
From a conservative-adjacent viewpoint, the policy implications resonate in several ways. First, there’s a case for strengthening disciplinary rules, legal frameworks, and enforcement so that consequences for malicious hacking are clear and dissuasive. Second, we should encourage local and community programs (including nonprofits, coding clubs, hacker spaces) to absorb technically talented youth into worthwhile projects. Third, public investment (or incentives for private investment) in cybersecurity education infrastructure is overdue — not just for defense, but as human capital development. If you can steer young talent into building defenses rather than breaching systems, society gains rather than loses.
In the end, the TfL incident isn’t just a headline — it’s a call to action. It suggests we’re entering a new phase of cyber risk, where the adversaries may be younger, more accessible, and harder to spot. But it also suggests an opportunity: if we invest smartly in youth education, ethics, and mentoring, we may convert potential future threats into real assets for national resilience.