Multiple Bank Accounts in Different Countries: Removing a Single Point of Failure

What happened when Revolut went down

On 20 October 2026, Revolut customers reported that they could not use the app or move money. Revolut said it was “experiencing a service disruption affecting multiple services” and that customers’ money and data were safe, BleepingComputer reported (opens in a new tab); its status page listed sign-ins, card payments, transfers, currency exchange and stock trading among the services partly unavailable. Later that day Revolut attributed the disruption to a Google Cloud outage and said its services were restored.

Rafael Cintron, who founded Wealthy Expat, was one of the customers affected. In the video he describes cards declined at a till, a USD 50 transfer that would not go through and investments he could not open.

The lesson is not about one company. Any bank, broker or payment app can have a bad morning when a supplier fails or a system goes wrong. The money was safe throughout; it was simply out of reach, and for someone with only that account, so was everything else.

Why one institution is a single point of failure

Holding everything with one provider exposes you to three different problems, and they call for different answers.

• Access. An outage or a lost card stops payments for hours or days, even when nothing is wrong with your money.
• Review. A bank may restrict an account while it checks a transaction or asks for documents. That is part of its legal duty to know its customers, and the answer is to respond fully, but the account can be unusable while the review runs.
• Failure. If a bank itself fails, protection depends on the deposit guarantee scheme behind it and on its limit.

In the European Union, Directive 2014/49/EU (opens in a new tab) sets the coverage at EUR 100,000 per depositor, and the limit applies to all your deposits with the same credit institution together, whatever their number or currency. Electronic money is not treated as a deposit and falls outside the directive. Schemes outside the EU set their own limits, so check the one that applies to each account, and check which institution actually holds the money behind an app.

Opening a bank account abroad: what to expect

A foreign bank account is opened the same way as one at home, only with more questions. Expect to show who you are, where you live and where you are tax resident, and to explain the source of the money you will deposit and of your wealth overall. These checks are legal obligations on the bank; meeting them completely is what makes an account stable once it is open.

Some banks accept non-residents and some do not, and each bank decides on its own risk appetite, so no status guarantees an account. Residence in the country can make the address and tax-residence questions simpler and gives the account a reason to exist. A residence permit in a second country is often the first step of the same plan.

How many bank accounts should you have?

There is no right number, but there is a working shape. Most people who live or invest across borders are well served by three layers:

1. A primary account where income arrives and regular bills are paid.
2. A second account at an unrelated institution, with its own cards, holding enough to cover your spending for a while if the first is unavailable.
3. Where your income, property or family spans countries, an account in a second jurisdiction and currency, ideally where you have a lawful reason to bank: residence, a business or property.

Two apps that rely on the same bank, or two accounts at one bank, are one point of failure, not two. Each account you add is also one more to monitor, renew and report, so add them for a purpose rather than for the count.

Reporting comes with every foreign account

Diversification is not concealment. Under the Common Reporting Standard, banks collect and report information on accounts held by residents of other jurisdictions, and their tax authority exchanges it; over 100 jurisdictions now exchange financial account information, HMRC’s manual (opens in a new tab) notes. Assume your tax authority will see the account, and declare the income it earns.

If you are a US person, citizen or resident, FinCEN (opens in a new tab) requires an FBAR when you have a financial interest in or signature authority over foreign financial accounts whose aggregate value exceeds USD 10,000 at any time during the calendar year. The IRS explains (opens in a new tab) that it is FinCEN Form 114, filed electronically through FinCEN’s BSA E-Filing System rather than with your tax return, due 15 April with an automatic extension to 15 October. Other forms may apply too. This article is not tax or legal advice: confirm your own obligations with a qualified adviser in each country involved.

A short checklist before the next outage

• List every account and card, the institution that holds the money and the deposit scheme that protects it.
• Keep at least one working card and one transfer route at a second, unrelated institution.
• Keep balances above a scheme’s limit spread across banks rather than concentrated in one.
• Hold your documents ready, so a bank’s review is answered in days, not weeks.
• Record each foreign account in your tax filings and the reports your country requires.

If a second country belongs in that plan, our strategy assessment sets out the residence and citizenship routes that fit your situation.