Q&A
Your no.1 choice for international payments Helping small-medium businesses save money on their international payments since 2009, CurrencyFair has over 150,000 customers in the UK and around the world. Ben Geoghegan is the company’s Inbound Marketing Manager. Here, he answers Global Trader’s questions on the credentials of CurrencyFair Ben Geoghegan
Q Why should companies involved in international trade avoid using banks for their currency exchange? A If your business needs to pay foreign suppliers or take payments from overseas customers, you should avoid using your bank or broker because you’ll lose money from their hidden exchange rate margin and expensive sending fees.
Banks tend to charge anywhere from 1% to 5% margin on top of the base exchange rate. This means that, for every £100 you send or receive, the bank keeps £1 to £5 for itself.
Q How do you believe you differ from other companies involved in the currency business? A Most people don’t know that one of the biggest costs when sending money overseas is the exchange rate.
Obviously, the more you send or receive from abroad, the more the bank keeps.
Q What is CurrencyFair For Business? A CurrencyFair For Business makes it far easier and cheaper for companies to send and receive payments worldwide.
Business owners and managers now have more control and visibility on the exchange rates for their payments and receivables. As a result, the savings are hard to beat.
When banks transfer your money from one country to another, they can be slow and expensive. Most banks will charge you a transfer fee and give you a terrible exchange rate which reduces the amount of money that comes out the other side. The bank at the other end may often then charge you a receiving fee.
CurrencyFair is different.
CurrencyFair lets you avoid international bank transfers by doing two fast, cheaper local bank transfers that work just like a costly international transfer and is usually about 90% cheaper than a bank for international currency transfers.
CurrencyFair, on average, charges around 0.35% and it can be as low as 0.15%. The savings can really add up and it’s regularly independently verified in the UK. Check out this review by Which? https://www.currencyfair.com/blog/whichuk-currencyfair-cheapest-way-to-send10000-to-europe/
At the general consumer level, why do money exchangers offer you ‘zero commission’ or ‘fee free’ money exchange? Because they’ve loaded the exchange rate unfairly. At CurrencyFair, we only show businesses our true, live rate so that you know exactly what you’ll pay and how much you’ll save.
Apart from amazing exchange rates, CurrencyFair For Business lets you achieve something none of our competitors offer: you can beat the interbank rate.
The interbank rate is the rate you see when you google an exchange rate such as the Pound to the Euro.
The interbank (or mid-market) rate is the exchange rate all companies use before adding their exchange rate margin on top.
Many CurrencyFair customers get a better rate than the interbank rate - to my knowledge, no other company in the world offers this service.
A Our business customers are based throughout the UK and across the world. They are spread across a wide range of industries including IT, logistics, manufacturing, professional services and more.
The three main reasons small-medium businesses use CurrencyFair For Business are:
• Send international payments to overseas suppliers in places such as Europe, China, the United States, and elsewhere. • Receive payments from overseas customers and clients. • Pay staff/contractors working abroad.
We usually hear that it’s the savings and the sense of control that business owners love about using our service.
Q What levels of service can new clients expect from CurrencyFair? A Over the years, one of our biggest sources of new customers has been referrals from existing customers. This is because we do everything in our power to make sure that business owners remain very happy that they found us and started using our service.
We can be reached online 24 hours a day but we also answer customer queries via telephone, email, and even by Twitter and Facebook. It’s why we consistently get such high customer service ratings.
Q Can you explain how your client base is made up and expand on the type of companies that you are currently working with? 15