The below explains why/how we cover almost all customer pain points and outlines the key company differences within our industry. Whether you are a B2B or a B2C customer (or perhaps both), we have you covered!
ONLINE ONLY
There are a couple of companies that offer an online only experience to customers (DIY – Do It Yourself). The rates are competitive, the reviews are good, transfers are quick and the user interface is pretty cool.
However, things start to unravel when you take a ‘devil is in the details’ approach. The disadvantages with online only for overseas property purchases and companies trading large sums are plentiful;
- Reviews - Almost all reviews online are from customers sending small transfers only. These companies are geared towards P2P payments like sending money back home to family for example, where no compliance is involved. I urge you to read the thousands of 1* & 2* reviews to find customers in similar boats to yours before making your decision on who to work with.
- Communication - You are in control of trading and making payments. If you have a problem with inputting account details, a fraudulant payment, wrong amount or currency traded, a compliance question after funds being held up, funds not clearing the other end, charges being received and so on, you have to communicate with either an AI bot online or someone that does not know you via online chat or email and you are likely to not receive an answer quickly (4-5 days seems to be the time taken for responses).
This results in lost time, extra fees, delayed payments and a huge amount of stress (again read the 1* & 2* reviews for case studies on this). The onus is on you to make sure everything you input into the system is correct and if you don't, the consequences of your mistake could be costly. Not having someone to talk to immediatly after a mistake must be one of the most infuriating positions to be in, make sure you correctly weigh up this risk before deciding who to work with.
- Expertise - The biggest and one of the most volatile markets in the world requires (in our opinion) ‘a hold your hand type of service’ for large exchanges. Online only firms offer zero expertise in terms of help in navigating the market, you are on your own to decide what to do. Let an FX expert save you an enormous amount of time and stress by suggesting options to allow you to make an informed decision on what to do with your money.
Exchange rates change every 2-seconds, 0.5% per day and on average see a 3% swing each month. Meaning on a £100,000 to USD exchange, up to $4,000 can be lost or gained within the month. Can you run the risk of working with an online only company that offers no market guidance or essential hedging tools like a forward contract to help minimise your exposure.
For the record, we do offer an online platform to customers if they wish to do everything themselves. But this is limited to customers with small ad-hoc payments or for corporate clients that regularly need to exchange smaller amounts.
CALL CENTRE
Some of our older and larger competitors have lost that personal touch with customers and are effectively operating similar to a bank. They do not offer a dedicated account manager and so you will be communicating with someone that does not know you each time you make contact. It can take time to get through to someone and that someone might not be the right person to deal with your query, they might not even be in the UK, leading to huge frustration.
No-one likes to be treated as just another number, especially when moving a large sum of money either as a one-off transfer or regularly. If you don't have a dedicated account manager with an FX firm and you are exchanging a large sum of money, it would be wise to look for another company that does, as they will be worth their weight in gold to you.
There will be no pro-activeness to let you know when rates are favourable or are going against you, no-one to understand your pain points or needs and honestly, this market doesn't reward people that go it alone.
A question we often ask if we are dealing with a customer who is already signed up or in touch with another company is; what is more important to you, price or service? Most will answer both, which is what we aim to provide.
But, with better service comes a slightly higher price and with a lower price comes a lower service generally. Unfortunately, the older and larger companies in our industry fail to offer either a good service or price nowadays. We have been in business since 2004, but we have never and will never lose that personal touch.
A dedicated account manager will be your point of call for all queries and can be contacted over the phone, email or SMS, as-well-as a payments member who will check payment details for you. They will get to know you, your requirements, risk-appetite even the name of your dog/cat. At the end of the day, we are entering into a business deal and so we treat customers the way we would like to be treated ourselves.
PROPERTY & HEDGING EXPERTS
Only half of our competitors offer services to personal customers (B2C). Less than half of that again, are ‘experts’ in the overseas property market sector. What makes a company an ‘expert’ in this sector is complete knowledge of the property buyers journey (timescales, documents, fees etc), experience in regularly facilitating new customer property transactions and whether the company is being referred by other companies in the real estate industry and/or advertising within it.
The person you are dealing with should tick all three boxes and if they don’t, you should find someone who does, as the level of service will be far superior. Our traders that handle property transactions have over 10-years experience within the FX industry. They are experts in all things property related and deal with new customers almost daily. There will be a good chance that in or around the area you are looking to purchase in, we will be working with someone in the real estate industry there.
If sending large sums in the B2B space, you should be working with a firm that actively and easily offers hedging capabilities. If your current FX company is not talking to you about forward contracts and creating a hedging policy to protect your profit, then they are not doing their job correctly and you as the customer are losing out on the main offering from a specialist FX firm.
SALES TECHNIQUES
This is a frustrating one to write about and unfortunately a subject that continues to be rife in our industry. Some companies will fool customers with an exchange rate that doesn’t exist to entice them into opening an account with them, to later push the profit margin out when it comes to making an exchange. An old-school sales technique that the average consumer will not understand if they are new to this market.
Basically, if a company quotes you a rate you can see somewhere online, they are lying to you. Ask them how they make their money and what rate are they currently buying at and they will come unstuck, as the rates will be the same. No-one in their right mind would enter a partnership/relationship with someone that has lied to them at the start and remember, if something sounds too good to be true people, it probably is.
We don't entice with fictious spreads or allow for any bartering. The spread we offer is dependent on the amount/s being traded and how much of our expertise is required. Obviously, we are in business to make money and depending on the amount being exchanged, spreads are often 0.3%-2% generally from FX companies, as opposed to 0.5%-4% from banks. The average saving is 2% against the banks on exchange rates alone, but often much more with a hedging policy in place.
Ultimately, choosing a specialist FX firm over a high street bank for your overseas payments will be the best choice, but choosing the right FX firm for you will deliver much more than you realise.
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