Please note: You should always refer to quotes you receive from transfer services themselves directly for exact amounts as they may vary from our estimates.
Bear in mind that you’ll start with a relatively low sending limit (typically £2,500). The more you want to send, the more security hoops you’ll need to jump through.
This is part of the “know your customer” (KYC) requirements that all transfer services must adhere to. And all credit to Atlantic Money, it runs these checks before taking your money (Wise has come under criticism for doing this the other way around).
£3, and that’s it. There’s no mark-up on the exchange rate. That’s exceptional, so let’s hope it’s actually a viable business!
Please note that it’s possible your recipient’s bank may charge a fee when receiving the funds.
Atlantic Money uses the “interbank” exchange rates, which is generally as good as it gets. There’s no mark-up or “margin” involved, just that flat £3 fee.
The maximum amount you can send with Atlantic Money is £1m. However, limits vary according to where you’re sending and what ID checks you have passed with Atlantic Money.
When you first open your account, you can send up to £2,500 in any 180-day period. But if you want to send more, simply request this in the app and you’ll be asked a few security questions and need to provide a selfie and a photo of your passport or driving licence. Then you’ll be able to send up to £30,000 in any 30-day period and £80,000 in any 180-day period. There’s no additional fee for this higher sending limit unless you use the express service which costs 0.1% of the amount sent.
If you want to send more than that, you can, but may need to provide documents related to your transfer. Then, you’ll be able to send up to Atlantic’s maximums, which vary by country. You’ll be able to fund your account with up to £1m, but the maximum you’ll be able to transfer is restricted in some markets (when sending US dollars, it’s $1m, for example, but for Euros and Australian dollars, it’s uncapped). Again, there’s no additional fee for this higher tier of service.
In reality, if you’re sending a large sum of money, you may benefit from the support of an account handler, which you don’t really get with Atlantic Money just yet. A good account handler would be able to offer guidance on recent fluctuations in the currency you’re buying, and might also help you set a rate trigger to execute your transfer at an optimal time, or lock-in exchange rates today for some time in the future, for example. That means that you might end up beating Atlantic Money’s £3 fee, though it’s not guaranteed. If you want to explore this approach for a large upcoming transfer, TorFX is a good example of a supportive, expert-driven approach to transfers.
Short answer: 2-4 business days. “Standard Delivery” takes 2 business days to convert the currency and then up to 2 additional business days to deliver the currency, depending on the destination. That delivery time is instant for Euros, 2 days for Australian dollars and 1 day for Canadian dollars, US dollars and most other supported currencies.
You can sometimes (depending on demand and timing) get the option to choose “Express Delivery” for a faster transfer at an extra, varying cost.
On Trustpilot, Atlantic Money is rated as a “great” service with a score of 4.1 out of 5 based on 27 customer reviews. 67% of users gave them five stars while 11% rated them as one star. Positive reviews highlight their app, customer service and competitive exchange rates. Negative review highlighted how Atlantic Money fixes your exchange rate for 24 hours while Wise locks in your rate for 50+ hours. Since Atlantic Money is a relatively new money transfer provider, there aren’t a lot of reviews online.
Atlantic Money is authorised and regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), as a payment institution with reference number 947491. If a transfer service is not authorised by the FCA, it’s best avoided.
While your funds are held by Atlantic Money they are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) which can compensate customers in the event that a financial institution goes bust. It is common for a money transfer service not to be covered by the FSCS.
Atlantic Money was founded in London in 2021 by Patrick Kavanagh and Neeraj Baid – themselves expats from across the pond. It started accepting customers in March 2022 after receiving backing from investors and securing an EU licence as a payment institution (through the National Bank of Belgium).
Put simply, yes. If you’re transferring £100 abroad, then Atlantic Money’s £3 flat fee might not be that exciting. For larger sums, though, it’s hard to beat. In fact the only way you’re likely to beat it is by using rate triggers (these allow you to trigger a transfer when a rate hits a target of your choosing) or with locked-in rates (where a transfer service honours a rate quoted earlier, even though the interbank rate has since worsened). If you’re transferring several thousand pounds and want to tap into those sorts of features, you might be better off with a broker like TorFX, where an account handler can help you through the process.
But for self-service, everything-in-the-app transfers, these prices are market-leading. We’d like to see Atlantic add more features to the app in due course – firstly an Android version, then support for more currencies, then rate triggers. But all-in-all this is a seriously impressive debut!
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