The launch of a new pioneering feature is announced today by Revolut, the global fintech with more than 65 million customers worldwide. This is an in-app feature designed to protect users from increasing impersonation fraud.
The new feature detects when customers opening the Revolut app are on a phone or voice call (via apps). It then verifies whether the caller is a Revolut representative. This way, Revolut goes one step further than similar market features: if fraud is detected, customers immediately receive guidance on taking action, reporting the incident and securing their money.
Criminals are constantly finding new ways to deceive, exploiting the rise of AI-generated deepfake voices and increasingly sophisticated social engineering tactics. In impersonation fraud, victims are deceived into believing they are communicating with their bank or a trusted financial institution. Often, they are pressured to transfer money to supposedly “safe” accounts, share sensitive data or approve fraudulent transactions.
The threat is accelerating rapidly. Fraudsters now create extremely convincing scenarios, even synthetic voice imitations. This concern is highlighted by a 2021 study showing that only 25% of people can accurately distinguish a fake voice from a real one. Nevertheless, the majority of participants falsely believed they could recognize them. These findings demonstrate that consumers are vulnerable to fraud, contributing to the increase in authorized push payment (APP) fraud incidents.
Revolut: empowering users with timely, effective protection
Revolut’s new feature adds a real-time notification banner to the app that appears immediately when the system detects the user is on a phone call. The system recognizes whether the call comes from Revolut’s official number or another source and notifies accordingly:
- Legitimate call: if the caller is from Revolut, a banner appears confirming the call’s legitimacy
- Potential fraud: If the caller is not from Revolut, the user sees a clear, urgent banner immediately informing them they are not speaking with the company
- Clicking the banner guides users to practical protection solutions tailored to the specific situation
Thanks to its real-time operation, this system offers an additional security layer against impersonation attempts that occur during calls, where victims are caught off guard and find themselves in vulnerable positions under pressure.
Rami Kalai, Product Owner at Revolut, stated: “Revolut is committed to creating a safer financial future. As fraudsters adopt artificial intelligence and advanced deepfake tools, we must innovate quickly to protect our customers and prevent rapidly evolving fraud threats. This new feature not only provides users with real-time, situation-adapted warnings but also guides them to recognize impersonation fraud, offering clear and practical steps to protect their money while the attempt is happening“.
A broader strategy for customer protection
This new release is part of Revolut’s broader strategy to protect customers from fraud and unauthorized activities. In 2024 alone, Revolut’s advanced fraud prevention systems prevented total losses exceeding £600 million. Recent releases strengthening this strategy include:
- In-app calls: enable immediate and secure communication with Revolut through the built-in in-app feature. This eliminates the need for customers to trust external phone numbers.
- Wealth Protection and Protection on the go: features designed for transfer security through biometric verification. The “Protection on the go” feature delays transfers to address specific incidents, such as robberies with forced money transfers.
- Enhanced machine learning systems: detect and block dangerous transactions before they complete and leave the customer’s account.
The new call recognition feature is already active for all Revolut customers with iOS devices. Android users can activate it proactively from the app’s Security Center.
