CurrencyFair: A P2P platform for currency exchange | Hacker News Reader

CurrencyFair: A P2P platform for currency exchange

techworld.com.au

35 pointspioul25 comments

Hey there - I'm on the tech team in CurrencyFair.

We've been around for a few years now, but weren't expecting to see our name pop up on HN just yet. Of course, now that it's here, if anyone has any questions about what we do, feel free to ask and I'll get back to you asap.

If you're looking for a direct link, it's at the bottom of the OP, or: https://www.currencyfair.com

Bitcoin seems to be missing from the list of supported currencies. That by design or an accidental mis-feature?

It's by design right now - we don't allow bitcoin at the moment for anti-money laundering reasons.

That said, we're watching that world quite closely - we could well support it in the future ... just not right now.

[edit: formatting]

The decentralized currency exchange platform found on the Ripple network seems more promising, as soon as you find a gateway near you that you can trust. Plus, you'll have support for other currencies (like Bitcoin or event local currencies) https://ripple.com/distributed-fx/

Unless I missed something, there is no easy way to send money to a US bank account though. The Bitstamp Gateway supports SEPA, but not ACH. Plus it seems like a lot of hassle to add more conversions to the process.

Hey, I actually just heard about CurrencyFair today (through the article I posted), and was surprised it didn't have a lot of news coverage thus far.

As a marketplace, reaching a critical number of users must be something to look forward to, even though I'd understand if you wanted to expand to select markets first (the article says 37% of your current users are in the UK, and 20% in Australia).

Hey Pioul - we noticed the traffic from your article ... thank you for that :)

<marketing speak>We're at quite a large size already, having put > .5bn sterling through our system by now</marketing speak>, but more users is always a good thing!

Sure, we have a large user base in the UK and Australia, but really, those users are international - they're not all from those countries, and that's completely ignoring all of the European users we have ... so critical-mass is something we've pretty much already hit.

[edit: spelling]

I meant the article I shared on HN, I didn't write it – so props to its author!

Ah, sorry, some confusion there. Another blog post today pushed a good few new users to our site earlier.

Now I'm just getting excited for no good reason ;)

If you guys can somehow enable transferring between bitcoin and regular fiat that would be a game changer. Right now that's a laborious process and the closest thing to it is buying BTC in person. But this system with BTC as an option on one side of the transaction would be a wonderful way to get into and out of BTC-land.

I've been using CurrencyFair for about a year now, after stumbling upon it. Beforehand, I just sent a wire straight from Chase in the US to my bank in the UK (Oh, dear).

It's been absolutely fantastic. I was a little hesitant at first, sending smaller amounts through at a time. But now I'm regularly transferring 5 figure sums without a worry in the world.

The rate you end up with is way better than what you get straight from the bank. And if there's no rush, I just set an order up at a rate I fancy, and wait for the market rates to wobble a bit, and someone fulfills it.

Because of the way it works, your money isn't actually the money coming out of the other end (it never is, I guess, it's all electronic) -- it means that I can deposit $X from my bank in the US, and have that appear as £Y in my bank in the UK, on the same/next day!

I haven't personally had any need to contact them, but I've read their customer support is good, too.

Cheers for the kind words, and I'm glad you're having such a good time using us.

Also, if you ever need to contact our support team, you won't be disappointed. They're always going the extra mile to help our customers out ;)

Keep in mind that when you transfer large sums of money abroad, you have to report it to the IRS.

Anything over $10K requires an FBAR form (TD F 90-22.1):

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f90221.pdf

Transfering the money to trusts requires a 3520 form:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f3520.pdf

Plus you should also read this:

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Forei...

Thanks for pointing that out. Though, it's a little more complex (and intrusive) than that.

I'm on an H-1B; every year the FBAR needs to be filed detailing how much money there is back home. Regardless of how it was earned, or whether it existed before I started working in the US.

I was initially disappointed that India didn't feature in the list of countries/currencies, and then I realized that something like this would be shut down here by RBI/IT Dept in a heartbeat.

I've actually used Currency Fair to exchange between dollars and euros (and I'm completely un-associated with the company or anyone there). My experience was positive - it was actually fun, with a bit of drama to see if someone would take my offers. It took a bit of time to set up my transfers, etc, but it was significantly cheaper than I would have paid using a regular retail bank's foreign exchange offerings. Nice work!

I've used this a few times to transfer money from Germany to the US. Worked fine. Only downside: US Banks seem to still recognise it as an international wire transfer and deduct the matching fees (10$ in my case).

But the exchange rate is better than what I'd usually get at my bank and the transfer from Germany to Ireland is free too.

Is there a way that banks could use the system(as a peer, maybe an invented user) and cross the information with deposits in its own accounts, so they can know when a customer used this scheme?

i mean, the moment this get more traction and the banks figure this out, the party is over and people get the international fees in their bills

Can the rates really be that much better than any other online FX payment service?

2% all-in seems to be the going rate for the ones I've used. Since both sides on an exchange are looking for the market price, that only gives you 1% of potential improvement assuming the market is sufficiently liquid and efficient.

We have a blog post[1] which gives a good outline as to why CurrencyFair beats other options, allowing users to even beat the market rate.

[1] http://www.currencyfair.com/best-exchange-rate

[edit: missing words :( ]

If one user beats the interbank rate, that implies that the other side of the trade lost out. The same number of customers who 'beat the market' also lose out by definition, so I think that's something to be wary of marketing.

In any case, my 1% assertion seems to be correct judging by a €600 purchase compared against FairPay (£513.73 rather than £519.26).

Incidentally, is your name inspired by Betfair?

Transferwise.com does the same, even have nice ads in London. https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/55865...

This is a brilliant idea. I always resented changing money, it never crossed my mind that a P2P platform like this could solve the problem so nicely. A perfect example of a problem staring you in the face…

Cheers :)

There's a good background to how CurrencyFair got started over on Forbes[1], if you're interested in reading more.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/dansimon/2013/10/18/entrepreneur...

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