The Plyna Cost Index

The cost of choosing the wrong provider

A single benchmark, built from our own daily data, for how much a UK sender loses by picking the wrong money-transfer provider — the gap between the best and worst deal, averaged across every consumer corridor we track. The wider it is, the more comparing pays off.

Current index — best vs worst provider

3.67%

across 10 corridors · as of 16 August 2026

0.40 pp narrower than a month ago

On a £1,000 transfer, that's about £36.73 lost by choosing the worst provider instead of the best — before anyone even mentions a fee. On the widest corridor today it's £174.31 (UK → Kenya).

Index over time

The average best-to-worst gap across corridors, by day.

Where comparing matters most

Best-to-worst gap on the latest real snapshot — widest first.

How the index is calculated

  • For every provider we work out the effective rate — fee and FX margin combined — and how far it lands from the real mid-market rate.
  • Within each corridor's latest daily snapshot we take the gap between the best and worst provider, then average that gap across all corridors. Comparing best-to-worst inside one snapshot removes the timing noise a raw rate figure would carry. Bank Estimate is excluded.
  • The index covers UK consumer money-transfer corridors only. Every figure traces back to a dated, real quote — never modelled or estimated.