SettlePay's new comparison site for forex transfer costs

SettlePay aims to provide a quick cost comparison for consumers and SMEs using the growing number of start-ups such as TransferWise, Kantox and Azimo. In addition to generating quick quotes, it also gives users the ability to "audit" previous money transfers. The platform aims to raise awareness and improve transparency around fees. 

Cross border currency exchange startups have emerged as one of the hottest sectors in the Payments Payments One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonl One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonl Read this Term and overall fintech sector, with companies such as TransferWise, Kantox and Azimo raising multi-million funding rounds. Merging digital platforms with currency transfer, these startup firms are providing efficient and low cost transactions to compete against traditional remittance companies such as Travelex and Western Union as well as banks.

With a growing list of startups targeting both the consumer and business slices of the money transfer pie, competition is now evolving from being only against banks and remittance firms, to each other. Proving that trend is the launch of SettlePay, a UK based money transfer firm created by Whites Group.

Like other payment startups, SettlePay provides an easy to use dashboard to enter desired transfer amounts to generate a quick quote. Being added though an ‘audit’ feature which is the ability for users to also enter terms of previous money transfers to receive what SettlePay describes as letting you see how much you have been overcharged by your current providers.

Cost comparison tools are far from a new feature in the payment industry, with several sites aggregating transaction details from their affiliated partners. As for companies adding comparison tools to compare themselves to their peers, this phenomenon is a more recent trend, but one that can be expected to continue as startups face more competition from other fintech startups. In this regard, a similar model was launched by Wealthfront in January. In that example, Wealthfront allows their users to connect asset management accounts from competitors to evaluate their fees.

There's a lot of noise made around the complexity of foreign exchange

Similar to Wealthfront, SettlePay’s goal is that more disclosure about foreign exchange transfer costs will raise awareness about fees and lead customers to lower cost players. On this, SettlePay Managing Director, George Thomas stated: "There's a lot of noise made around the complexity of foreign exchange. This is made worse for UK businesses by major banks and even many new 'disruptors' in the Forex Forex Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Read this Term space being non-transparent and, in some cases, blatantly misleading, with their charges. The truth is, every provider in the industry can buy foreign currency at the same rate at the same time. The difference comes in how much they then sell it on to their customers for. We're very proud of the disruptive nature of SettlePay and fully expect it to lead to a significant amount of awkward conversations between SMEs and their current Forex providers once the lid is lifted on charges they've incurred."