Pay UK recipients in British pounds from your USD account. Altitude converts the funds and delivers them through Faster Payments, the UK's domestic payment network. The exchange rate, the fee and the exact amount your recipient will receive are shown before you send.
To send USD to a UK account via SWIFT instead, see Send an international payment.
Send a GBP payment
Select Pay from the action bar.
Choose a recipient, or select Add recipient and pick British pound as the destination currency. You'll need their sort code, account number, bank name and address. Double-check the details – they can't be edited after saving.
Choose the USD account to pay from and enter the amount – in USD, or in GBP if the recipient needs to receive an exact amount. The rate, fee and recipient amount update as you type.
Add a payment reference. It appears on the recipient's bank statement. Invoice number, due date, note and attachments are optional.
Review and select Send.
The payment goes to your Inbox for approval and execution.
Note: Use a payment reference your recipient will recognise. Their bank statement may show our payment partner as the sender rather than your business name.
Exchange rate and fee
Fee: Altitude charges 0.4% above the mid-market exchange rate for GBP payments. This covers currency conversion and payment costs and is included in the rate shown. The fee is the same at any volume – there are no monthly allowances or volume tiers.
Your recipient receives exactly the amount quoted – nothing is deducted on the way.
The quote refreshes every 30 seconds while you enter the amount. Once you send, the rate and recipient amount are fixed for that payment, including while it waits for approval.
The rate and fee are saved with the payment and appear in its details and in the confirmation PDF you can download from Transactions.
See How payments work for how exchange rates are set.
Note: If a payment can't be delivered, the funds come back to your USD account at the exchange rate at the time of the return, so the USD amount can differ slightly from what you sent.
Timing and limits
Faster Payments runs 24/7. Payments usually arrive within 30 minutes of being executed; any compliance review of the payment adds to that.
Payments over £1,000,000 are routed through BACS instead and take up to 3 business days.
Minimum: GBP payments have a minimum of £2 per transfer. There is no maximum.
Availability
GBP payments are enabled per workspace. If Faster Payments shows as under review when you add a recipient, it isn't enabled for you yet – contact [email protected] to request access.
Paying an invoice? Bill Pay handles USD, EUR and stablecoin invoices today. For a GBP invoice, start from Pay and enter the invoice total as the amount the recipient receives.
Ready to send a GBP payment? Open Altitude and go to Pay.
New to Altitude? Open an account. Need help? Email [email protected].