A Maltese missionary who managed to raise almost €30,000 in donations to help underprivileged communities in Pakistan has had his Revolut bank account terminated.
Fr Karm Debattista, a member of the St Paul’s Missionary Society who is also well-known as a singer-songwriter, is on mission in the Punjab region of Pakistan, where he is sitting out the COVID-19 pandemic with some of the hardest-hit families in the area.
In April, through a plea on Facebook, Fr Karm was able to raise €30,000 in just four days, a considerable amount of which was received through his Revolut account.
“Revolut was the only visa card I had in Pakistan and through it I could easily buy food for the poor and distribute it,” Fr Karm told Times of Malta.
“I cannot do this anymore, although the remaining money was transferred to an account in Malta. We lost no money but we’ll still need to find a way to bring back the money to use it here. Transferring from one bank to another is not as simple as it may be in Malta, since we are foreigners here.”
Revolut was the only visa card I had in Pakistan
When asked whether Fr Karm’s use of Revolut had breached the platform’s terms of service in accepting charitable donations. a spokesperson for the platform told Times of Malta that using the platform to fund charitable causes was against the app’s terms of service.
“Customers cannot use their personal account for business purposes. Our business terms and conditions also state that you cannot open an account if you are a charity, political or religious organization.
"This is because onboarding charities is much more complex and we would of course not want to hinder their operations in any way. We apologise that we did not make it explicitly clear to the customer that we are unable to provide services to charities.”
The spokesperson said Revolut would never want to impact or hinder the work of a charity and are doing everything they can to support Fr Debattista.
"We are working to reactivate his account conditionally but unfortunately he will not be able to continue to use his Revolut account for donations going forward.”
Revolut, a British fintech company, is primarily a banking service that allows easy cash transfer and other services like crypto-trading through its smartphone app.
The company acquired its special banking licence from the European Central Bank in 2018 and facilitates deposits and consumer credit through the Bank of Lithuania.
The company came under fire in February, when it’s anti-fraud and money laundering algorithm automatically suspended a number of accounts, including that of Priorité Energie, a Parisian company that helps low-income families to insulate their homes under a government initiative.