Revolut’s stay and spend pitch to government
Below is a letter that Revolut’s head of public affairs in Ireland, Sebastian Hamilton, wrote to the Department of Business and Minister for Public Expenditure Michael McGrath in July. The company was touting itself as a means to deploy the Stay and Spend scheme, a tax credit initiative from the government during the summer (before the second wave of infections) to encourage ‘staycation’ spending.
Hamilton was pitching Revolut’s service as a complement or even alternative to the Stay and Spend app, which required people to use the app to take a picture of receipts to claim back credit from Revenue:
“This system is so similar to the Stay&Spend app proposal that we felt we should get in touch to see if we can discuss ways in which we might assist with the project,” Hamilton wrote.
He added that Revolut had the “ability to limit/monitor spending” in the app. It loosely reminds me of something that popped up in the government’s social media monitoring about using dedicated debit cards from banks and financial services companies to limit Covid-19 support funds.
