Money movement firm firm Atlantic Money is to make it possible for users to forsake its app and instead send and receive currencies direct from within their own bank accounts.
With the launch of Portals, users can access the Atlantic Money network from their main bank account, making transfers with Portals as convenient as Swift but still as cheap as Atlantic Money’s fixed fee pricing of £3 per transfer.
After a one-time setup, users receive a unique set of Portal accounts for each recipient. A USD recipient's Portals includes both GBP (sort code + account number) and EUR (Iban) Portals. Users can then initiate local bank transfers directly from their home bank to these Portals.
For example, a UK customer sending money to a USD recipient simply transfers GBP from their banking app to the designated GBP Portal. The Portal automatically exchanges GBP to USD, then delivers USD to the US account. This process creates a direct link between the person's UK bank and the US account with Atlantic Money’s infrastructure operating in the background.
With Portals, users can transfer up to £1m to major currencies such as EUR, USD and INR for a £3 fixed fee and at the current exchange rate. Standard delivery transfers are paid out within 2 business days, while express transfers are paid out instantly.
Neeraj Baid, CEO and co-founder of Atlantic Money, comments: “With our app-less approach, we are extending the existing banking infrastructure - just like Swift - instead of adding a new service on top of it. Portals allow every person and business to benefit from Atlantic Money’s fixed fee transfers within their banking home turf and without any custom integrations.”
Baid says Portals are built for recurring payments. An analysis of 40k transfers handled by Atlantic Money shows that 94% of users that recurrently transfer do so to the same recipient bank account.
Users can set up recurring transactions in their primary bank account while continuing to take advantage of Atlantic Money’s low-priced fixed fee. The firm says the solution will be particularly valuable for expatriates sending money home, businesses paying international suppliers, or individuals supporting family members abroad.
“First we removed percentage fees from international transfers, now we take ourselves out of people’s way," says Baid. "Portals challenges the industry to rethink how we approach building simple, elegant, behind-the-scenes financial services in an increasingly interconnected world.”