Three rates, and only one of them moves money
Almost every provider shows you a single number with the margin already inside it, and calls it “no fees”. Three numbers is the only honest way to describe what actually happened to your money.
The reference rate
A named public benchmark at a stated timestamp. It exists so you can judge whether an execution was reasonable. Nobody transacts at it — not us, not your bank, not the partner. Quoting it as though you could is the oldest move in this industry.
We put it on the record with its source and its timestamp. And when we cannot verify one against a published source at that moment, the record says so rather than filling the gap with something plausible. An estimate presented as a benchmark is worse than no benchmark.
The executable rate
What the partner will actually transact at, at this size, right now. It is worse than the reference rate, always, because somebody has to be paid for holding the other side. This is the number that decides what lands in your account.
The customer price
The executable rate plus our stated fee. Both appear separately on the record, so you can always see which part is the market and which part is us.
Our fee is our entire revenue on a payment. It does not have a second, quieter half hidden inside the exchange rate.
What we will not say
Zero FX spread. The conversion partner carries a margin. If we repeated that line while settling through them, this whole company would be pointless. The accurate version is narrower: Nomapay adds no markup to the rate, and none to transport.
Cheapest in the market. We cannot see every provider or every transaction, so nobody can honestly claim it.
Instant. Cross-chain takes minutes; the fiat leg takes longer. We publish measured times from detection to bank credit.
And why we will not lock a rate
This is the one people push back on, and they are right to want it. A locked quote is genuinely better for you: you know what you are getting before anything moves.
It also means somebody carries the FX risk between the quote and the execution. Carrying it needs pre-funded balances in both currencies, which is a balance-sheet business rather than a software one, and we do not have the balance sheet.
We could promise it anyway. It would even hold most of the time. The times it did not hold would be the volatile days — which is to say, the days it mattered, during somebody’s payroll week, in public.
So: quotes are indicative. When we can hedge a position properly we will offer locked rates and say so plainly. The fee itself is here.