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Show HN: World’s first £3 flat fee (0% FX markup) money transfer service

atlantic.money

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Re: Show HN: World’s first £3 flat fee (0% FX markup) money transfer service

#41

Post by OJFord »

wdaareg wrote: post #39
OJFord wrote: post #35

Example on the home page costs £3, arrives Friday (it's currently 9am Wed). Slightly beats Wise (£3.69) - but they estimate 4 hours. I'm not sure how this is 'the world's first fixed fee money transfer product'? Wise guarantees a rate for 2h (which swings both ways so isn't really a markup IMO) - are you claiming to offer closer to spot pricing?

We're fixed fee because we'll charge only £3 regardless of how much you send. If you want to send £2000 on Wise, that fee is doubled. But with us, it's still just £3.

I just noticed that and was about to delete my comment - nice! - for some reason I thought Wise was flat too.

Maybe you should show that off with a different homepage example? Since Wise also defaults to £1000, and at that price point isn't very different to you (and tbh more compelling, given the speed).

Re: Show HN: World’s first £3 flat fee (0% FX markup) money transfer service

#42

Post by marcusklaas »

wdaareg wrote: post #28
thaumasiotes wrote: post #6

> World’s first £3 flat fee (0% FX markup) money transfer service You know, I have a Capital One bank account that I opened because it advertised no foreign transaction fees. And yet whenever I make a foreign transaction on the debit card, I pay 1% more in dollars than I get in FX. That 1% number is eerily consistent. I still use it. 1% is a reasonable fee. But I'd be a lot happier if they admitted they were charging…

Global money transfer has to be the place where some companies offer the most opaque fees. It's absurd - and we want to compete hard with those businesses by offering cheaper, simpler, and more transparent services to customers.

That's an admirable goal. I'm rooting for you folks.

Re: Show HN: World’s first £3 flat fee (0% FX markup) money transfer service

#44

Post by Keyframe »

Corinthian wrote: post #26
londons_explore wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I can shuffle $1M between £ and $, costing £6/hour, and earning guaranteed money whenever the rate moves by more than 0.00003 in a half hour period? Sounds open to abuse!

Why would that be guaranteed? Do you have a magic formula that tells you exactly what the exchange rate is going to do at any given moment? If so, can I see it?

That's fairly standard, even among banks. I have a bank account and account with their FX desk, when I need to do conversions. They give me a spot rate real close to what you'd "seen on google", but I have to close the offer within the hour or it's not valid anymore. It's a big european bank.

Re: Show HN: World’s first £3 flat fee (0% FX markup) money transfer service

#45

Post by thaumasiotes »

wdaareg wrote: post #28
thaumasiotes wrote: post #6

> World’s first £3 flat fee (0% FX markup) money transfer service You know, I have a Capital One bank account that I opened because it advertised no foreign transaction fees. And yet whenever I make a foreign transaction on the debit card, I pay 1% more in dollars than I get in FX. That 1% number is eerily consistent. I still use it. 1% is a reasonable fee. But I'd be a lot happier if they admitted they were charging…

Global money transfer has to be the place where some companies offer the most opaque fees. It's absurd - and we want to compete hard with those businesses by offering cheaper, simpler, and more transparent services to customers.

What exchange rate are your customers getting?

Re: Show HN: World’s first £3 flat fee (0% FX markup) money transfer service

#47

Post by wdaareg »

robk wrote: post #38

Can you add to the usa app store please? Many of us in UK use the usa app store.

Hmm this is a good point. To be honest I was in that bucket for a while too. I think you're right, we'll just need to figure out how to prevent US app store users in the US from getting confused. I would recommend you sign up on the website for now and we'll make sure the app is available in the US app store when the service launches!

Re: Show HN: World’s first £3 flat fee (0% FX markup) money transfer service

#49

Post by theptip »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #6

> World’s first £3 flat fee (0% FX markup) money transfer service You know, I have a Capital One bank account that I opened because it advertised no foreign transaction fees. And yet whenever I make a foreign transaction on the debit card, I pay 1% more in dollars than I get in FX. That 1% number is eerily consistent. I still use it. 1% is a reasonable fee. But I'd be a lot happier if they admitted they were charging…

This is core to the FX (foreign exchange) business model. You have two places you can get paid: fixed transaction fees and the “spread” on the underlying exchange rate.

Most companies offering FX services will charge both.

Most consumers are not sophisticated enough to do the calculation to blend the fee into the quoted rate to get the true rate. Institutions will be.

The risk of a “no fee” pricing scheme (or why there are fees in the first place) is to avoid getting wiped out by lots of small transactions, where your per-transaction overhead dominates. OP clearly has automated enough that they are not worried about this. And given the amount of manual work still involved in FX (do not get me started on some of the process hell I saw running international payments globally over an “api” payment provider), there is also a lot of room to reduce total cost through automation.

But in summary, everyone is making money from the FX rate spread, and you are always getting charged more than the provider is paying for the currency. The question is just whether fee or spread dominates.

Re: Show HN: World’s first £3 flat fee (0% FX markup) money transfer service

#50

Post by wdaareg »

NiekvdMaas wrote: post #46

Revolut has the same currency pair sample on their website, and it's a few bucks cheaper: https://www.revolut.com/currencies

Revolut has likely the most complex fee structure I've ever seen. I think their first 1k per month is free, but after that you get charged. They also charge additional fixed fees just for the international payment.

Good luck!

https://assets.revolut.com/legal/terms/International_Payment...

https://www.revolut.com/en-GB/legal/standard-fees/

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