Revolut launches Group Vaults to make it easier for people to save together

If you’re going away on holiday or wanting to buy a house at some point, the hardest thing is always the saving.

It becomes much easier to focus on a set goal when you're doing it with another person, though, and this is the thinking behind Revolut’s new Group Vaults feature. Instead of opening a joint account, you can simply open up a Group Vault on the app and invite other Revolut account holders to become members.

Then, you can start adding money to the Vault, whether it’s a way to save funds for a group present, that all-important deposit or maybe even a wedding. This can be done by either one-off contributions, by rounding up spare change or by recurring payments.

Revolut says it decided to create the new feature after seeing the success of its original Vaults saving function. Over one million vaults have been created since last April, with around 3,000 new Vaults opening every day.

Speaking about the new savings feature, Revolut’s head of mobile, Ed Cooper, said: “After the huge success of our Vaults feature, we’ve been inundated with requests from thousands of customers in our community asking for an easier way to save together with family and friends.

“Group Vaults are the payments equivalent of a group chat - easy to create, easy to join, easy to leave, and easy to close. We can’t wait to see what people do with them.”

The new feature rolls out to all Revolut's European users today.

Revolut isn’t the only fintech to offer an easier alternative to the joint account. Last year, micro savings app Chip launched a feature called “Squad Goals”, which allowed people to create a group on the app and encourage the other members to save for a particular event, such as a holiday.

“You can’t see each other’s savings, just progress towards the shared goal. And you can send each other emojis to comment on savings,” Chip’s founder and CEO Simon Rabin explained.

If you would rather have an old-fashioned joint account then you can easily set one up at challenger bank Monzo. Both customers need to already be Monzo users, and you create the joint account as a secondary one to your respective personal ones.

Monzo’s handy savings “Pots” feature, similar to the Revolut Vaults one, is also available in joint accounts so you can save away until your hearts’ desire.