From the issuing of the first cheque in the 17th century and the original wire transfer in the 1870s to the advent of the credit card and the cash machine, society has had to adapt to the changing nature of moving money, worrying all the time how secure each process can truly be.

The latest change to the public’s money-moving habits is online technology. While early proponents got going in the mid-1990s, according to the Bank for International Settlements, it is since the start of this decade that specialist online peer-to-peer (P2P) operators have been offering consumers a competitive rate of exchange for their money transfers.

Companies such as TransferWise, Moneycorp, WorldFirst, CurrencyFair, OFX, FairFX, Currencies Direct, Revolut and Global Reach Partners seek to attract business with eye-catchingly low commissions, often criticising the big banks for their comparatively expensive transaction costs.