Thanks for your feedback. I agree with having a Plan B. For me, that means always keeping some cash on hand in multiple currencies (especially when I travel) in case something goes wrong in the digital world. I also have all of my digital cards spread across three different mobile devices. That way, if one device is lost, damaged, or stolen, I can still use another one to make payments. It’s a bit like having three copies of all my digital cards. That said, there was a time four or five years ago in Thailand when some of the contactless terminals were still older models and couldn’t always read virtual cards from a phone. Occasionally, I had to insert the physical card instead. Fortunately, I haven’t run into that problem in Thailand over the last couple of years. I have, however, had a couple of instances in Japan where digital cards weren’t accepted, particularly at hotels when settling the bill, and they insisted on a physical card. I also remember having a few payment issues at train stations in Japan paying for train tickets because you could pay for the ticket online first but then to pick up the physical ticket at the train station you needed to insert the physical card. I don’t mean to go off on a tangent, but Japan is an interesting case. People often think of it as being very technologically advanced, and in many ways it is. However, compared with places like China or even Thailand, some of the payment technology is surprisingly dated. Japan often adopts technology early but doesn’t replace it until there’s a compelling reason to do so, so it’s not unusual to encounter systems in Japan that are a generation or two behind. Anyway, it sounds like you’ve more or less switched over to digital card payments as well. For me, it started when I was using Wise regularly. I had two physical Wise cards but hardly ever used them. When I switched to Revolut, I decided not to bother ordering physical cards anymore. It’s also good to hear that Revolut hasn’t put you through any KYC hassles. I have read some nightmare stories about Revolut locking people's accounts for no apparent reason, just some algorithm flagging people. Large transfers into Thailand seem to be one of the things that can trigger extra scrutiny. Years ago, I had a KYC nightmare with Wise after using it to transfer money to Thailand for my retirement visa. They were threatening to close my account if I couldn’t provide the required SoW documents, and it eventually reached the point where they kept asking for more paperwork even though I had nothing else to give them. Eventually they accepted my documents, but the stressful process left a bad taste in my mouth. Because of that experience, I’m being very careful with Revolut. I mainly use it as a debit card for everyday purchases and avoid using it for larger banking transactions in the hope of not triggering another needless KYC review.
