• 235,000 people claim to be earning over £200,000 and 47,000 more than  £1 million

New research⁽¹⁾ from global currency business Centtrip, reveals that 1.22 million people claim to be earning over £100,000 a year, and there are 235,000 individuals who say they are being paid £200,000 or more.  Some 47,000 people say they are earning over £1 million a year.

Centtrip is a Global Currency Account with an online payment platform and multi-currency prepaid MasterCard® card created to serve the needs of companies and affluent individuals with a commitment to international bank payments and travel. Customers can purchase currency spread free and send payments worldwide in all major and most exotic currencies direct from their account. They can also deposit funds to hold on account or transfer to associated cards in up to 14 currencies at a guaranteed fixed fee of no more than 0.5%.

The instant access to the live market means Centtrip customers are always able to take advantage of market highs and avoid the lows.

The prepaid MasterCard card comes with significantly higher balances and spend limits compared to £5,000 or £6,000 for most prepaid currency cards and its new international transfers service is consistently among the most competitive in the market⁽²⁾.  For example, buying £20,000 of Euros to transfer to a Centtrip card would save you around £406 against an average credit card spend of the same amount, £424 against a typical prepaid currency card and £429 when compared to a debit card.

Similarly, by using Centtrip to transfer £5,000 into US Dollars for example, you would save around $229 when compared against the most expensive provider, or around $108.79 against the market average⁽³⁾. When looking at £100,000, these savings jump up to around $2,147 and $597 respectively.

In addition to spread free exchange rates, there is no charge for point-of-sale transactions with the currency card at over 35 million locations and fees at 2.1 million cash point machines worldwide displaying the MasterCard Acceptance Mark. Furthermore, the efficiencies of a single account, which enables customers to manage all payments and expenses in one place, benefits affluent individuals by reducing the fees associated with having multiple bank accounts and cards in different currencies.

Tony North, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Centtrip said: “There is a growing number of mass affluent, high net worth and ultra-high net worth people living in the UK.  This is being fuelled by more UK citizens reaching this milestone, but also a growing number of people in this category coming to live in this country – in particular London – from overseas.

“Our growth as a company is in part, being fuelled by this.  Before launching our new enhanced international payment service, we saw the amount of currency bought on our card more than double every quarter in, and we now have over 5,000 clients including many high profile clients and luxury corporate clients.”

Analysis of industry data⁽⁴⁾ by Centtrip reveals that around 17% of people have total household wealth of £500,000 to just under £1 million, and 11% have £1 million or more. Indeed since 2006 the number of people with total household wealth of more than £1 million has increased 209%.