Revolut, a British payment services company that has been operating in Portugal since 2015, has had more than 100,000 customers investing in cryptocurrencies in the country over the past two years, with the number growing by about 15% in the first quarter of this year, compared to the previous quarter.
At a press conference, Revolut said that among the preferences of customers, bitcoin and ether, the Ethereum network cryptocurrency leads the demand by the Portuguese, with about 65% of the total investment in this sector. Bitcoin corresponds to 33% and ether 32%.
Bitcoin investment peaked on February 8 of this year, when the cryptocurrency surged to over $46,000 per unit. On that day, about 10,000 bitcoin purchase orders entered the Revolut service in Portugal.
The company began offering cryptocurrency services in 2017, at a time when bitcoin was at an all-time high so far, reaching $17,000 by the end of that year. Edward Cooper, sector leader at UK fintech, says the company has just been accused of “pursuing the ‘hype’,” which he denies, and highlights the potential behind these cryptocurrencies.
He begins by asking at a press conference this morning: “Why don’t you have cryptocurrencies?” Cooper says that “even traditional banks” such as Goldman Sachs and Citybank offer cryptocurrency services to clients.
Transactions in Portugal grow 177% in pandemic الج
In the month that Revolut celebrates two years of activity in Portugal, the company reported significant business growth in the country, around 300%, in line with what we see in other geographies in which it operates. Globally, in a pandemic year, Revolut gained 4.5 million customers and says it now has more than 15 million customers worldwide.
Between March 2019 and March 2021 – despite considering a year marked by covid-19 – the number of transactions by Portuguese users with their Revolut cards grew by 177%. Every month, Revolut customers around the world make 150 million transactions.
More than a third of users in Portugal are male, between the ages of 25 and 34. They are mainly concentrated in the regions of Lisbon, Porto, Braga, Coimbra and Setubal. Analysis of the data also allowed us to conclude that there was a significant increase (120%) in the volume of payments made with Revolut cards.
Contactless payments also recorded a significant increase (200%), as well as an increase in the number of users making online purchases (260%). Value transfers between friends and family have also gone up 160% over the past two years. Domestic card usage increased by 280%.
The Portuguese still use Revolut accounts to put some money aside. In the first six months of this year, domestic users actually deposited 125% more money into their vaults than in all of 2019. And this year alone, more than 400,000 safes were created, according to the company.
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