Show HN: 99% cheaper international business transfers – fixed fee, real rate | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: 99% cheaper international business transfers – fixed fee, real rate

atlantic.money

62 pointswdaareg76 comments

Hello Hackers! One year ago we changed international transfers for consumers with only a fixed fee and made them on average 10x cheaper than Wise. Now we are thrilled to announce that we start “Atlantic Money for Business” to offer transfers up to £/€1m for a fixed £/€3 fee and at the current exchange rate. And while Revolut and Wise have recently raised their prices for business transfers by up to 50%, we enable savings of several thousand on every transfer. What are you waiting for?

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I've been using Wise for years and am generally happy with them, but always keeping an eye out for alternatives. Why I didn't find this convincing

- Have to download app - wise lets me use a website too, and generally I want to do business banking from my laptop, not my phone

- No actual price comparisons and 99% seems unlikely. Wise also gives me the 'google exchange rate'. If you are actually cheaper, then I would show comparisons for €100, €1000, €10000, not just 'a million euro'.

- Make it clearer that you're available in the EU - I nearly closed the site thinking it was only for UK as it defaulted to GBP.

- Have a 'wall of text' version in the header - the landing page is light on details, and I don't assume I'll find more information on "News", "Blog" or "Help" - maybe a "Features" or "Offerings" header page where you go into a lot more detail (countries you're available in, currencies you offer, documents needed to sign up, full table of all fees (not the marketing version), timelines for opening an account, timelines for making transfers, etc etc)

Revolut is a bit cheaper than Wise for FX changes.

Revolut seems to act like a bank but is it regulated as a proper bank? I am suspicious of it because it was touted to me as "made by Russians" but since I'm one it had the opposite effect.

But anyway I don't think you can sign up for Revolut without a proper bank account and residence in one of eligible countries while Wise can charge even a debit card. Limits and slightly higher fees apply and they require ID verification but it works. I had to do it while unbanked.

> I am suspicious of it because it was touted to me as "made by Russians" but since I'm one it had the opposite effect.

You're suspicious but it had the opposite effect? Sounds like you're trying to deliver a talking point and got confused half way thru.

"I am suspicious of it because (it was touted [the information was presented as if it was a good thing] to me as made by Russians but since I'm one it had the opposite effect)"

No, the information was that it was "made by Russians" - quotations normally used to denote literal citation.

The other commenter is correct, founders were a selling point but it had the opposite effect bc I am aware of the whole laundering thing done by my rich compatriots

Ok thanks for clarifying.

I'd rather pay the higher fees than give any money to a company that treats it employees the way Revolut does. The CEO and his company culture is not sustainable and I would not be surprised in the future when some scandal comes out.

Avoid Revolut at all costs!

It took me two weeks to get back into the app after switching phones. There's no way to contact support except by logging into the app or by Facebook. Then on Facebook they have an automated system that will close your ticket after 24 hours of you not replying.

I'm on a 12 hour time difference so that happened around four times before I got it solved. I ended up shouting in caps at that them, and I'm not a caps kinda guy. As soon as I got back in I withdrew all funds and closed the account.

Since I've been telling this story I've heard several more horror stories. The worst was a friend who gets paid through Revolut, so it triggered an automated finance checking system and instantly locked his account until he could prove he paid tax. Then the system wouldn't let him upload the docs for several days, support was just as helpful as they were with me. He had no money for five days.

Anyway, why would they do that? He wasn't doing anything illegal, they could have asked him to provide the docs with a week's grace and all would have been well.

Revolut has a EU banking license.

Thank you for your feedback, will be considered! Web app is in the making, so we are happy to welcome you soon on board.

And say no more about the Wise comparison: https://atlantic.money/wise

My company pays Wise around £100/month in transfer fees so reducing that to £3/month piques my interest but the headache I would experience if anything went wrong would cost me a lot more than £97. My worst nightmare when using a new financial platform is that I get caught up in some KYC nightmare after transferring money and it is stuck in purgatory forever.

The website doesn't include anything to reassure me that the service is as reliable (or more reliable) than Wise. There's no social proof. I found the news article with your first annual report and that's quite compelling.

- Add average transfer times so I can see what most people are experiencing when using the service

- Add social proof: positive reviews would be very helpful

- Add real time information about volume

- Shout about your reliability: Wise has reputation that does the work for them, you don't

- Mobile app only is a little concerning too for business usage: I use Wise for business and personal, business on the website, personal on my phone (I can't articulate why but using Wise for business on my phone "feels" wrong)

Its £3 per transfer, not per month:

https://support.atlantic.money/en/support/solutions/articles...

Sorry, poor phrasing on my part. I typically make 1 monthly transfer which costs me about £100 with Wise and would cost me £3 with Atlantic Money.

Thank you for the feedback, much appreciated and will be considered!

Please note that our web app is in the making. So soon this won't be an issue anymore.

To prevent our users to "get caught up in some KYC nightmare" we – in contrast to Wise and Revolut – only allow your transfer after we checked and approved your documents. This minimises the risk of holding your money.

Cheers

99% cheaper is probably much more of a turn-off to possible customers than an appealing feature.

50% cheaper is something that I'd look into. 99% cheaper feels like this is going to one or more of: a scam, a fly-by-night operation [unable to afford good customer service, etc], hidden exchange fees [giving me a terrible rate and telling me that's not the case], a planned bait-and-switch, and/or an unsustainable business that will evaporate after I switch to them.

Price and fees matter. But driving them down too low and leading with that as your pitch makes your best potential customers skeptical (and hurts your own ability to build a sustainable business).

When you change an entire sector, it is always met with a lot of scepticism at first. But 99% is nothing but the truth, especially since Wise and Revolut increased their prices for biz transfers. Check out our Wise comparison we created to demonstrate the difference: https://atlantic.money/wise

Further, we are profitable with Atlantic Money on every transfer. Our whole infrastructure is built on a different concept, which is why Wise and Co. also cannot offer transfers for the same price without losing it all.

To give you a proof of our work: We transferred £160m ($200m) in our first year for private users, 16x what Wise sent back then.

Why is this not available on the website and I need to install an app and enter numbers into my phone?

Everything is an app on the phone now.. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be an app. But running a website is the least common denominator - why would a company forego the basic win?!

It's financial. It's a lot more complicated for me to inspect an app than a website. I understand that the modern generation is pretty comfortable with this but us old folks have a lot of money and don't trust our phones with it as easily. (I beta tested Android while at Google. Smart phones aren't new to me. I just have a different level of acceptable risk than my kid does.)

Nobody capable of finding exploitable issues is going to be deterred by being an app rather than a website.

If their thought process on this is actually “security through obscurity”, then I would not go anywhere near this as it tells me immediately that they don’t give a single solitary fuck about proper security guidelines.

Because there is - potentially - a lot of money involved and I like to do that sort of thing on an environment that I control. No smartphone here so the web is all I have. Money transmitters are operating in a heavily regulated domain and KYC/AML requirements are going to dominate the discussion, any operator that wishes to be taken serious should list up front what they are going to require and why as well as to state clearly who they are (physical location, names of execs) rather than to post from anonymous low karma accounts with urgent calls to action. Also: inside the EU money transfers are already fast and with minimal costs, I use these daily and any claims of improvement should be backed up with proof. 99% seems very strange as a claim without a comparison matrix listing prices. My immediate concern is that if their claims are true that they must have some other way of making money of the transactions that is not disclosed.

Further, we are profitable on every transfer with Atlantic Money. Our whole infrastructure is built on a different concept, which is why Wise and Co. also cannot offer transfers for the same price without losing it all.

To give you a proof of our work: We transferred £160m ($200m) in our first year for private users, 16x what Wise sent back then.

You really should be more transparent about who you are and how you make money, comments with figures by anonymous accounts carry zero weight. The payment industry history is littered with corpses from companies that attempted to 'change the entire sector' not a few of those went the way of the dodo while still holding customer funds. When large amounts of money are involved a lot of skepticism is very much warranted, especially when a 'Show HN' is used by an anonymous account for what is essentially an advertisement.

No, I think that mobile apps are either time killers - for example, for watching funny videos while riding a train, or messengers - to ask employee questions while riding a train.

A business app on a phone doesn't make much sense because in office you have a computer with a large monitor and a proper keyboard which is more convenient to use than a smartphone's tiny screen.

This is a business offering. I don't want to juggle my online banking and a transfer app and and and ... on my phone. I want them readily available on my multimonitor desktop where I can save data to my accounting folder.

A mobile app for business seems weird to me. Why use a tiny phone when you have a laptop or desktop PC with a large screen and a proper keyboard? And the accounting software is usually installed on a desktop.

There are lot of people who don't have a laptop, but they probably are not the ones who is going to transfer "up to $1M" internationally.

Also, using a smartphone is not secure (no 2FA).

Web app is in the making!

I don't see a list of countries for receiving payments. Is this only UK/EU to UK/EU or can it do UK/EU to any country? I don't want to install the app just to see it doesn't work for me..

edit I just noticed it says "global" on the page, so I guess it's possible to send to any country?

USD isn't supported :(

Comparison tool: https://atlantic.money/gb/en/wise

The flat fee makes it advantageous starting at about $500-600, compared to Wise. So, not for small transfers but nice for businesses paying internationally.

You got it right.

That sounds too cheap, in the sense you wont have money to handle things going wrong or KYC stuff etc.

Assuming transfers only between bank accounts, so sending/receiving institution done the KYC, fully electronic transactions, and contract non-repudiation, very little can go wrong

Famous last words.

Fraud. What if you are required to return the inward deposit but cannot obtain the corresponding outward transaction. Or you can but lose money on the rate.

Bank transfers being reversible is the reason for the difficulty buying crypto at least years ago, maybe it is easier now.

FX services in my experience have a lot of staff and ask a lot of questions even for established accounts. Also the banks ask a lot of questions (although that is to the benefit of the FX service reducing the likelihood of fraud hitting the FX)

First thing that came to my mind - gonna get sued/shutdown by DOJ for ignoring KYC/AML stuff like every crypto thing that claimed the same.

There's probably a good reason they aren't operating in the US.

EU has nearly identical KYC and AML requirements...

We are actually working on it.

We are licenced and regulated by the FCA in the UK and the NBB in the EU – two trusted financial authorities that also regulate Wise. We therefore have to meet the expected high standards both authorities require from us, especially in terms of KYC&AML.

Good luck with your venture.

Not sure why no one mentions OFX when doing these comparisons. Their rates are good and I don't recall pay any fees on top of them. When I looked into this year ago seemed much cheaper than Wise.

I've been using Atlantic in a personal capacity for about a year now and I have nothing but good things to say about them. The iOS app is super slick!

One time, however, my bank blocked a payment claiming it was cryptocurrency, and I had a rather interesting chat with their customer support, with the agent(s) getting quite visibly frustrated about the situation. Apparently it happens a lot.

For the curious: In the UK, Atlantic use the British branch of Estonian bank LHV Pank (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LHV_Pank), and you get a dedicated account number and sort code to send the money to (i.e. no need to fiddle with reference numbers)

Thank you. Happy that you are happy (with one exception). And the good news: The banks have now understood who we are.

looks great but when i see low prices to catch users, i always think of when services start with subsidised rates, rack in users, and then they do bait-and-switch to boost their margins later down the line. Wise/Revolut are clear examples. Start cheap/free to get users, then once they get traction start slowing increasing rates to improve margins/profitability. So great if you really have an operational model that allows you to grow and stay profitable keeping that fixed fee, but i doubt it will. I think if you explain why your product is cheaper and why you can keep it cheaper sustainably compared to competitors then I would believe it

Reactions when checking out the homepage:

* Huh, that is quite a bit cheaper and I don't love wise

* Is it available for US customers? I can't quite tell

* Eugh, I don't want to download an app. I'm working on my laptop right now, not my phone. I do 99% of my Wise payments on my laptop

Then reactions reading the HN comments:

* People noting that 50% cheaper is good but 99% cheaper a concern that it won't last. And the transfer fees I pay to wise are nothing compared to the headache if there was a payment issue. I agree with both of those, I'm convinced to stick with wise until I'm sure that this would be both cheaper and equally credible and low-risk / low-hassle

Web app is in the making!

Reaction to this: Hmm, they replied about the web app but not the other comments

On a separate note - congrats on the launch, and I hope it does great!

To the OP: flesh out your profile with your details and company affiliation, this looks super scammy. And explain how you make your money because 99% cheaper is a red flag, not a feature.

We weren't aware of this, actually. Did our initial launch like this as well one year ago to get decent feedback. Noted for the future, thank you!

I can't change my old profile name, but I have added some context in my "About".

The only thing that I would consider as interesting for attention now is a service that will value me as a customer and not have AI flag transactions I do monthly and then ask me for submission of endless paperwork for aml/Kyc reasons. It’s becoming too much of a burden even though there is 0 cause beyond them trying to cover their asses ‘just in case’.

You forgot to add 'while keeping your money in limbo'.

To answer your question, I’m waiting for you to enable the service outside of Europe. Also I wonder if your service works well with businesses sending several millions per month or the KYC nightmare will start then. It’s unfortunate how banks never want to support big businesses sending big transactions around the world

Interesting, I usually have less trouble sending larger amounts than intermediate ones.

What's the fee for currency conversion or if you don't charge one what are your exchange rates?

Flat fixed fee and the current exchange rate. Compare against Wise for better understanding: https://atlantic.money/wise

The only way I see possible a $3 fee on a $1m FX change is if you send the flow to an internalizing HFT, a bit like Robinhood does. So the HFT is the one actually subsidizing the exchange, because they want this kind of "non-toxic" flow.

Am I correct?

Use Revolut; Revolut business has fantastic APIs for global realtime transfers.

Can a Canadian client pay me, in Europe, using Revolut?

Is this just for sending money, or can I receive money as well?

(I have a company in Sweden and sometimes do some work for a US company. They pay me / my company in US dollars, currently through Wise.)

We don't offer USD pay-ins atm but we are working on them.

Looks very good. But yeah, make sure you have enough £££ headroom to chase up banks when things go wrong. Otherwise you’re one failed large TX away from trouble.

>at the current exchange rate

Which one exactly?

There is not "the one" exchange rate. But ours matches with Google or Wise and we never make any hidden profit on it.

Compare for yourself: https://atlantic.money/wise

Too bad US-CAD transfers are not possible currently.

Congratulations Patrick and Neeraj on launch!

thanks!

Is there an option sending without exchange?

We don't do same currency transfers.

Any plans to launch your service in the US?

your pricing looks stunning. can I use AM for Business only in UK though?

We hold licences in the UK and the EU and are therefore available in 29 countries throughout Europe.

No CHF, pity

Why would you need to send 2000$ to an international friend?

I would assume the main market for these companies is people sending money to their family who lives in another country.

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