A clever solution, nice work. That said, I'm very curious about your long term view on this model as a differentiator. My understanding is that Wise fees are essentially a pass through to customers, so your differentiator is that you've chosen "slow and cheap" over "fast but costly"... but if you validate that there's a market for "slow and cheap" alongside "fast but costly" won't Wise (and others) introduce the "slow and cheap" option because you'll threaten their place in the market as you also offer "fast but costly"? The profitability of Wise is not predicated on "fast but costly".
I am not a fan of "...but what if you're copied..." argument against the viability of a business, because often the easy-to-copy outward expression of a business is only possible because of difficult-to-copy underlying business strategies. However, in this case, Wise do share the same underlying business strategies as Atlantic (that is, transact efficiently and take a small fee) so the only differentiator (as far as I know) is the product decision to offer cheap + slow (and therefore be able to transact even more efficiently).
There's lots of room for different players in the space and so "there's room for us alongside Wise" is a very valid answer, I am guessing there's a different answer though, so I'd love to understand what you imagine the future to be: maybe you have some insight into why, actually, there are operational complexities that mean Wise aren't going to ever offer this service in the same way.
If they force Wise to offer slow and cheap then we all win. I just checked the cost on a GBPUSD transfer, and it's 350 pounds + some kind of exchange rate cut. The difference between Wise and Atlantic is an entire ocean and I'm not convinced Wise will undermine their gravy train by trying to compete with a plucky upstart. Only if said plucky upstart becomes a billion dollar company; any by then they don't need to worry about being competed out of existence.
We're trying to put that gravy back into your pocket! These are the exact problems that motivated us to build this product - because we ourselves were forced to pay these fees when we moved to the UK from the US.
My understanding is that the fees Wise charges are dictated by the costs of their fast method, rather than, say, a requirement of their business model.
I’m very much in agreement that this is a win for customers either way, and I think it’s a very clever idea — challenging the assumption that speed is more important than cost — I’m just super curious to understand their long term thinking.
That said, I could be completely wrong about Wise: maybe they are banking a lot of profit off big transactions, in which case, this is a challenge to the model Wise are pursuing and would definitely be a significant competitor.
I am not a fan of "...but what if you're copied..." argument against the viability of a business, because often the easy-to-copy outward expression of a business is only possible because of difficult-to-copy underlying business strategies. However, in this case, Wise do share the same underlying business strategies as Atlantic (that is, transact efficiently and take a small fee) so the only differentiator (as far as I know) is the product decision to offer cheap + slow (and therefore be able to transact even more efficiently).
There's lots of room for different players in the space and so "there's room for us alongside Wise" is a very valid answer, I am guessing there's a different answer though, so I'd love to understand what you imagine the future to be: maybe you have some insight into why, actually, there are operational complexities that mean Wise aren't going to ever offer this service in the same way.
Thanks!