Recently I was helping a family member setting up a Revolut account in Hungary. A step in this process included verifying their address. It seems to me that – unlike many fintech apps – Revolut does not accept utility statements or bank statements, but instead requires you to upload a picture of your residential address card (in Hungarian: “lakcímkártya”, or “lakcímet igazoló hatósági igazolvány”).
The residential address card is one of the pinnacles of Hungarian bureaucracy – it is both quite pointless and also very important, you often cannot get things done without having it with you.¹ Moreover, it’s quite badly made: it’s printed on regular paper, then folded in half (badly: you have to rotate it upside down when you flip it) and laminated. The latter is important because Revolut insists that your photo should be sharp, easy to read and should not have any glare. Because of the lamination, it’s almost impossible to shoot a photo of the residential address card that’s sharp and doesn’t have any glare.
I used an iPhone 17 Pro and tried different settings (different levels of light, outdoors, indoors, etc.) and every photo I submitted was rejected after a few minutes. But I persevered and I found a solution: just keep submitting more photos and after about 5 attempts, Revolut didn’t reject the image right away but instead kept it in limbo. Then, a few hours later (presumably) a human reviewed it and accepted it. Great success.
¹I was once turned back from the voting station during the general elections because I didn’t have this and had to go home and pick it up.