Atlantic Money launches low-cost foreign exchange service across Europe • TechCrunch

Fintech startup Atlantic Money is expanding its global money transfer service to more markets and more platforms. The company was originally launched in the UK with GBP as the base currency and nine different currencies on the receiver side.

Since then, the company has expanded and is now present in 29 European countries. Users can exchange Euros with Atlantic Money and send money to foreign bank accounts.

What makes Atlantic Funds stand out from the competition is its focus on simple payments. The company often doesn’t add any fees and charges £3 or €3 per transfer whether you’re sending €100, €5,000 or €500,000.

In addition to the new corridors, Atlantic Money is also launching a mobile app on Android. The company also plans to launch a web app in the future. The startup has previously raised funding from Rabbit Capital, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, 20VC, Amplo and Elefund and operates as a payments institution in Belgium and the UK.

Of course, there are some limitations when comparing the product from famous players like Wise. For example, you must manually transfer funds to an Atlantic Money Payments account. You can’t use a debit card, or Apple Pay or Google Pay.

Adding a new receiver to your bank account isn’t without a bang, but it cuts down on the number of middlemen. But that’s why, in many cases, Atlantic Funds will be cheaper than Revolut, Wise, MoneyGram, Western Union, and your existing bank account.

But you can pay for a premium Revolut subscription to unlock financial products and waive some fees. If so, you might want to stick with Revolut for your international transfers. Likewise, you can rely on Wiz to accept payments abroad with Wiz local account details. So it depends on your specific situation.

It’s worth noting that Atlantic Funds charges an extra fee for instant transfers (0.1% of the transfer amount). At the end of the week, customers can use the Friday night exchange rate with a 0.1% markup fee or have Atlantic Money exchange rates determined the next business day.

For smaller transfers, services with variable fees like Wise and Revolt will be cheaper than Atlantic Money. But if you want to send more than €1,000, Atlantic Money will be an interesting choice. Now let’s see if the startup can survive for long with such low transaction fees.