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

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

#181

Post by phphphphp »

Gareth321 wrote: post #174
phphphphp wrote: post #128

A clever solution, nice work. That said, I'm very curious about your long term view on this model as a differentiator. My understanding is that Wise fees are essentially a pass through to customers, so your differentiator is that you've chosen "slow and cheap" over "fast but costly"... but if you validate that there's a market for "slow and cheap" alongside "fast but costly" won't Wise (and others) introduce the "slo…

If they force Wise to offer slow and cheap then we all win. I just checked the cost on a GBPUSD transfer, and it's 350 pounds + some kind of exchange rate cut. The difference between Wise and Atlantic is an entire ocean and I'm not convinced Wise will undermine their gravy train by trying to compete with a plucky upstart. Only if said plucky upstart becomes a billion dollar company; any by then they don't need to wor…

My understanding is that the fees Wise charges are dictated by the costs of their fast method, rather than, say, a requirement of their business model.

I’m very much in agreement that this is a win for customers either way, and I think it’s a very clever idea — challenging the assumption that speed is more important than cost — I’m just super curious to understand their long term thinking.

That said, I could be completely wrong about Wise: maybe they are banking a lot of profit off big transactions, in which case, this is a challenge to the model Wise are pursuing and would definitely be a significant competitor.

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

#182

Post by wdaareg »

kasey_junk wrote: post #160
Youden wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about the law of one price here, just the fact that the global currency exchange trade is decentralised. There's no one exchange that aggregates everything and can give you a single authoritative price. In other assets, like equities, there often is a single central exchange. If you want to buy CURI for example, it's only listed on NASDAQ, so the price on NASDAQ is The One True Price as far as a norma…

It’s not even true (anymore) that CURI is only listed on NASDAQ. It’s traded at lots of venues but there is at least a benchmark bid/ask based on US securities law. In fx it’s the law of whoever has the most information because there is no benchmark market at all. It’s why fx pricing is so hard to do right.

Based on our experience speaking with a number of institutional players, including traders and banks, what we found is that the institutional rates are unbelievably efficient, but the situation immediately gets worse as you move away from these centers of liquidity.

If you talk to 3rd party institutional FX providers, they'll immediately mark up rates because its how they make all of their money.

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

#184

Post by kasey_junk »

wdaareg wrote: post #176
kasey_junk wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What global exchanges? FX is all OTC.

Check out CBOE FX ( https://fx.cboe.com/ ) and EBS ( https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/market-tech-and-data-servic... ). Settlement and trading of FX may often be OTC, but that doesn't mean there aren't exchanges or aggregated marketplaces.

Ok. So what you really mean is that you (or your liquidity partners) participate in multi dealer platforms so you have a large number of trade desks to work with. But even adding the big players together like Integral, CME & CBOE gets you to what less than 1% of the daily fx liquidity?

That’s fairly far off of the expectation you set by saying you offer “the interbank rate”. Which is a pure marketing fiction.

For context the FX desk at JP Morgan by itself provides about the same volume as any of those aggregate platforms.

[later] fwiw I don’t think how you get to your rates particularly matters so long as they are competitive and your service seems like a valuable addition to the mix of consumer options. I get hung up on this because the fx market is notoriously opaque because the major players want it to be and I think leading people to believe there is some sort of benchmark rate adds to that morass.

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

#185

Post by 323 »

Youden wrote: post #158
ttoinou wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the law of one price is purely theoretical and never applies in real life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_one_price There is no such thing as a "live rate" or "market price"

I'm not talking about the law of one price here, just the fact that the global currency exchange trade is decentralised. There's no one exchange that aggregates everything and can give you a single authoritative price. In other assets, like equities, there often is a single central exchange. If you want to buy CURI for example, it's only listed on NASDAQ, so the price on NASDAQ is The One True Price as far as a norma…

What you say doesn't really apply to currencies, at least not to major ones.

All currency exchanges track each other extremely closely, because it's extremely easy to arbitrage between them.

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

#187

Post by wdaareg »

rory wrote: post #168

Weird bug on this site... I have crappy $10 plug-in earbuds, and when I open atlantic.money I hear periodic "clicks" of interference roughly every 1300-1500ms (the interval is constant, I'm just not sure of the precise timing). I can't hear anything with the headphones unplugged, and it goes away as soon as I close the tab. Anyone have an idea what could cause this?

Thanks for raising, have shared with the web team!

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

#188

Post by YYYdoIdoit »

avs733 wrote: post #162
YYYdoIdoit wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without having a cookie opt-out option A financial company playing fast and loose with the law, and especially data protection law, does not bode well. One to avoid methinks.

on the other hand, an internet company playing fast and loose with EU cookie opt-outs seems so par for the course that I would take it as more suspicious if they were not?

> an internet company playing fast and loose with EU cookie opt-outs seems so par for the course

And I, like many, avoid business with any such companies who display a contempt for personal data.

If my ISP did such a thing, they would be very quickly reported to the Information Commissioner. Also, I think you will find the UK is beholden to the GDPR. It isn't simply an "EU cookie" law as you seam to imply.

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

#189

Post by YYYdoIdoit »

blunte wrote: post #143
YYYdoIdoit wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without having a cookie opt-out option A financial company playing fast and loose with the law, and especially data protection law, does not bode well. One to avoid methinks.

> A financial company playing fast and loose with the law That escalated quickly.

> That escalated quickly

Pfft

The company clearly had poor legal advice and/or didn't think things through, yet they want my money and personal data? At the very least, you should consider this error analogous to the Van Halen 'no Brown M&Ms rider', in that it flags sloppy practice elsewhere [1].

[1] https://www.insider.com/van-halen-brown-m-ms-contract-2016-9

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