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

[wdaareg]

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?

[ritzaco]

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)

[wdaareg]

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

[dist-epoch]

Revolut is a bit cheaper than Wise for FX changes.

[iterminate]

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)

[wdaareg]

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

[dist-epoch]

Its £3 per transfer, not per month:

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

[sokoloff]

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).

[wdaareg]

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.

[kevincox]

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

[codedokode]

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).

[reacharavindh]

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?!

[wdaareg]

Web app is in the making!

[gorbypark]

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?

[welder]

USD isn't supported :(

[cranium]

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.

[wdaareg]

You got it right.

[quickthrower2]

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

[pxmpxm]

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.

[cjalmeida]

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

[avsteele]

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.

[void-pointer]

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)

[wdaareg]

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

[hankchinaski]

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

[tikkun]

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

[wdaareg]

Web app is in the making!

[jacquesm]

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.

[wdaareg]

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".

[anonzzzies]

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’.

[jacquesm]

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

[ajimix]

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

[jacquesm]

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

[qwytw]

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

[wdaareg]

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

[dist-epoch]

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?

[nicolinox]

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

[unnouinceput]

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

[bjornsing]

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.)

[wdaareg]

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

[clnq]

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.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

>at the current exchange rate

Which one exactly?

[wdaareg]

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

[num3ric]

Too bad US-CAD transfers are not possible currently.

[jakozaur]

Congratulations Patrick and Neeraj on launch!

[wdaareg]

thanks!

[fsniper]

Is there an option sending without exchange?

[wdaareg]

We don't do same currency transfers.

[screamingninja]

Any plans to launch your service in the US?

[littwitz]

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

[wdaareg]

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

[misja111]

No CHF, pity

[marcopicentini]

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

[lbourdages]

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