Atlantic Money, a money transfer fintech founded by two early employees of RobinHood has moved out of stealth with a promise to take on the likes of Wise and Revolut with a cheaper offering for larger value transactions.
As American expats in London, co-founders Patrick Kavanagh and Neeraj Baid wondered why, more than a decade after the emergence of the first fintech challengers, they were still being hit with £100's in exchange rate fees for a service that was largely automated.
Atlantic Money says that the fixed percentage rates charged by incumbents penalise customers with progressive fees for costs that do not exist.
The company aims to correct the imblance by offering the live mid-market currency rate and a flat fixed-fee of £3 for transfers up to £1 million.
Launching initially to UK customers on 9 March, the app will enable customers to send money from the UK in GBP into nine currencies including USD, EUR, AUD, CAD, SEK, NOK, DKK, PLN and CZK, with new currency corridors being added continuously post launch.
The service is accessible to anyone transferring money abroad, but its core focus is to facilitate substantial cost-efficiencies for people sending sums over £1,000 who are currently getting the worst deal:
“Unlike our competitors, we are not subsidising costs associated with products and services that our customers have little interest in," says Kavanagh. "It’s a simple pitch - with Atlantic Money all transfers up to £1,000,000 receive the live mid-market currency rate for a flat fixed-fee of £3, delivering savings of up to 99% versus all our competitors.”
The company has raised $4.5 million in seed funding from Amplo & Ribbit Capitalwith participation from Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures, Harry Stebbings’ 20VC, Elefund, Day One Ventures & Susa Ventures. Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, the founders of Robinhood, and Anquan Wang, founder of Webull, also invested.