Former Robinhood employees Neeraj Baid and Patrick Kavanagh have launched Atlantic Money, a fintech money transfer startup challenging Revolut and Wise.
From Robinhood to Atlantic Money
Neeraj Baid and Patrick Kavanagh, having worked at Robinhood on international projects including expansion into the UK which has not yet happened, have seized the momentum to create and launch Atlantic Money, a fintech remittance for the UK market.
?So excited for launch day!! Sending money abroad is about to get a whole lot better ? !
Say hello to @atlantic_money as we come out of stealth. The only money transfer provider with a £3 fixed-fee & zero FX markup all the way up to £1million! https://t.co/73ymqwRVwt pic.twitter.com/YRVMX7iZhe
— Patrick (@PatrickKavanagh) March 9, 2022
“I’m so excited for launch day! Sending money abroad is about to get so much better! Say hello to @atlantic_money as we come out of stealth. The only money transfer provider with a fixed fee of £3 and zero FX markup up to £1m!”
The startup raised a $4.5m seed round led by Amplo and Ribbit Capital. Robinhood founders Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt have also invested in the company.
At the moment, the service is initially available to UK residents looking to move sums of £1,000 to £1 million in nine other fiat currencies USD, EUR, AUD, CAD, SEK, NOK, DKK, PLN and CZK.
Challenging Revolut and Wise
When it comes to competitive advantages, Atlantic Money claims that its core service is UK money transfer, and that it is distinguished in the market by its fixed fee of £3.
Unlike Revolut and Wise, the company charges a fixed rate of £3 with no mark-up on the exchange rate they can provide. For small transfers, £3 is hefty. But once you start transferring more than £1,000, Atlantic Money becomes more competitive.
In fact, to give an example, when you try to transfer £5,000 to the US, it costs £17.79 in fees on Wise and you receive $6,648.51. Using a free Revolut account, on the other hand, you pay £20.96 in fees on top of the £5,000 you want to convert. However, the exchange rate is slightly better as you receive about $6,700 in exchange for £5,020.96. No match for Atlantic Money’s £3 fees.
In this regard, Neeraj Baid said the following:
“Our fees are low. Especially if you get into the £1,000s, you’re looking at 50-80% savings over anyone else in the market, which is something we’re incredibly proud of – we’re also profitable on every transfer”.
What about cryptocurrencies?
Baid reportedly worked at Robinhood Crypto and was the decisive force in putting Dogecoin (DOGE) on the platform, but for Atlantic Money it isn’t time yet.
In this regard, Kavanagh commented:
“One of the first questions we have is whether cryptos can make money transfer faster, cheaper and easier. The answer from the research we have so far is: not yet. But we are agnostic, so if crypto solves the problem we are happy to do so”.
Meanwhile, DOGE continues to get its support from its super influencer Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and founder of SpaceX and Tesla.
Since the beginning of 2022, Musk has been tweeting in favour of the memecoin par excellence, explicitly asking McDonald’s if it accepts DOGE and then revealing that Dogecoin will be accepted in his futuristic Tesla drive-in restaurant in downtown Hollywood.
Not only that, but also the CEO of the large US cinema and theatre chain AMC, after surveys and previews, declared the official date from which it will start accepting payments in DOGE and SHIB and it will be 19 March 2022 to be exact.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/03/10/fintech-former-robinhood-employees-launch-atlantic-money/