Circle launches free Euro, Sterling and Dollar currency transfers in Ireland

Circle, the international social payment app with its European HQ in Dublin, has announced the removal of all charges on their cross-border currency transfer service.

Customers in Ireland, the US, UK and wider Europe can now send and receive money instantly across borders with no fees and no markup on foreign exchange rates.  This development represents another step in Circle’s mission to tear down borders and barriers to sending money anywhere in the world.

Recent figures from the Pew Research Center and The World Bank estimate that over the next four years Ireland could pay as much as €735 million in fees and markups (if the average cost of sending money internationally remains at 7.58%).

The service is ideal for paying back a friend or family member, sending funds to a child or family member overseas, or chipping in for a trip. With the Circle App, sending money works just like sharing a photo, text message or email. Funds are sent for free and arrive instantly.

Most Circle European customers are millennials (90% are below 35 years old and 60% are below 25 years old) and use the product for many day-to-day person-to-person payments.

Unlike other peer to peer payment Apps, Circle is available on iOS and Android, works across borders and can be used with debit and credit cards. Immediately received, the funds can be stored in the App or safely transferred to the receivers synced bank account, usually in less than 24 hours.

Speaking at the announcement Founder and Chief Executive Jeremy Allaire said “The middlemen in cross-border payments have made transfer costs exorbitant and we want to cut them out of the equation.  When you send an email from Ireland to another country, you’re not charged for sending it.  So why do so many international payment services charge outrageous fees for moving bits and bytes across borders?”

“This is a significant new benefit for Circle customers. It also represents a disruption to the entire consumer cross-border payment market. Prices and profit margins for payments are collapsing to zero, in the same way that the price of communications and information publishing collapsed to zero in the first phases of the internet” he added.

Circle, who launched in Ireland in October 2016, continues to rollout in Europe with significant growth in the past year. Circle’s overall growth rate in customers year over year has been over 1000%, and our payments volume growth rate in Europe since January has been over 500%.  Circle handled over $1Billion in transaction volume in 2016.

Circle is officially launched in the US, UK, Spain and Ireland and is also available in Early Access release in 15 other markets (Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Finland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Estonia, Austria, Portugal, Poland, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Croatia, Liechtenstein).