Equals Money Review 2026: Exchange Rates, Fees and What Your Recipient Gets

Equals Money's exchange rate and margin

Equals Money makes its money on the exchange rate, not a headline fee. It does not publish a flat markup, so the rate you get is agreed at onboarding and shifts with the currency, the size and your plan.

Specialists like this usually sit around 0.3-1% above the mid-market rate, against 2.5-5% at a high street bank. Move serious annual volume and a dealer can quote you tighter still.

The catch is the lack of a public number. You cannot price it from the website, so you have to ask, which suits a managed relationship more than a quick one-off send.

Equals Money transfer fees

International transfers carry no per-payment fee and no monthly subscription. The cost lands instead on the cards and expense platform, which is tiered.

Card spend in around 21 supported currencies is fee-free; out-of-currency spend adds 1.5%. ATM withdrawals cost £1.50, and each physical card is £10 plus VAT.

Sending £1,000 to EUR and USD with Equals Money

A real business send is usually far larger, but here is the mechanism. Equals Money has no public calculator, so these are illustrative: a 0.5% margin on the mid-market rate on 25 June 2026.

The margin is the real cost, not the £0 fee. On £1,000 a 0.5% margin is about £5; on a £50,000 supplier run it is £250, and that is where a negotiated rate earns its keep.

Countries and currencies supported

We confirmed Equals Money lets a business hold and convert balances across 35 to 38 currencies through a single multi-currency IBAN. It pays out in more than 140 currencies to roughly 190 countries, including common business corridors such as the United States.

Payout methods

• Bank payout via SWIFT, SEPA and SEPA Instant, and UK Faster Payments
• One multi-currency IBAN to receive, not local details per currency
• No cash pickup and no mobile wallet
• Business accounts only; no personal remittance

Transfer speed and limits

Individuals sending money to family

Not an option, and worth stating plainly. Equals Money has no personal accounts and no cash pickup, and a private FX account can carry an onboarding fee of up to £1,500.

If you are sending money home to family, a consumer app like Wise or Remitly is the right tool for you. Equals Money is simply not built for that job.

Business and supplier payments

This is the core fit for international business payments. Your finance team can upload up to 10,000 payments in a single batch, route payroll over local rails, and let the Xero feed handle most of the reconciliation.

Here is the real differentiator: a named account manager who answers the phone. When a payroll run stalls at month-end, a human on the other end beats a chatbot every time.

Large one-off transfers

A genuine strength, which is unusual for a fintech. Equals Money books forward contracts up to 24 months out, plus limit and stop-loss orders, set up with a dealer rather than an algorithm.

Picture a €500,000 supplier invoice due in six months. A forward lets you fix today's rate, so a currency swing does not quietly eat your margin before the invoice falls due. A consumer app cannot do that.

How Equals Money protects your money

We checked Equals Money against the FCA Register. It runs through several authorised entities, including Equals Money PLC (a Payment Institution, FRN 488396) and Equals Connect Limited (FRN 671508).

It keeps your client funds in segregated accounts at Tier 1 banks, apart from its own money.

That is not FSCS protection, so there is no compensation guarantee on your balance. For a working business float moving in and out, segregated safeguarding is the standard arrangement for a payments firm.

Account security and fraud protection

Security is built for teams. Equals Money makes you clear two-factor authentication, including when you add a new payee, so a stolen login cannot quietly redirect a payment.

You can set role-based permissions and freeze a card the instant it goes missing, and the platform monitors transactions around the clock.

Signing up and verification. Onboarding is full business verification: incorporation documents, director ID, proof of address and ownership. Higher-risk sectors get deeper checks, so give yourself time before any deadline.

App and website. The web platform is the real hub, and it reviews well; the mobile app is mostly for receipt capture and approvals. Be warned the app-store scores are mixed, with Google Play sitting around 2.6.

Customer support. This is where Equals Money earns its keep. Human support runs 365 days a year by phone, email and in-app chat, and corporate clients get a named account manager rather than a ticket queue.

We read the recent reviews, not just the headline number, and they point one clear way.

What people praise: the account managers, the speed of sorting out payment queries, and the cards platform.

What goes wrong: onboarding friction, bugs after platform updates, and the odd statement that will not download.

Against Wise Business, Wise charges no monthly fee and shows a transparent fee from 0.33%, and gives you local details in 9-plus currencies, but it has no forward contracts and caps batches near 1,000.

Against Airwallex, Airwallex offers true local accounts in 20-plus currencies and a published 0.5% margin, while Equals Money wins on human FX dealing and hedging advice.

For individuals, none of this applies, so use a consumer provider. We compared these routes ourselves, and we refresh the live figures daily, so see our money transfer comparison for the route you care about.

Equals Money is a serious payments and FX platform for businesses that trade across borders.

If you run regular payroll and supplier payments, want to lock a future rate with a human dealer, and have the volume to justify the plan, it is among the better options in its class. We rate it 4.1 out of 5.

Just be clear on the boundary: this is business-only, the FX margin is not published, and an individual sending money home should look elsewhere entirely.