Currency exchange – why it can pay to not rely on your bank
International trading is something many businesses are involved in, whether it’s because you are selling your good or services abroad or buying raw materials in from overseas to help with manufacturing.
Either way, exposing yourself and your business to currency risk is a reality for many businesses, and how you reduce that risk as much as possible is something to think seriously about. For most businesses, the default option is to simply transfer money from your business bank account to the account of the company you are working with abroad. It’s easy, yes, but you could be paying more than you need to and cutting your profit margins as a result.
How much do you transfer abroad each year?
The best way for you to make your international money transfers depends very much on how much, and how often, you transfer overseas. If you make a one-off payment each year, then you will most likely need to take a different approach to a company making regular payments abroad every month.
So, the first thing to do is look at how and when your company is transferring money overseas. By checking through your bank statements, assuming you are using your business bank to make the transfers currently as many businesses do, you should also be able to get a sense of what the exchange rates you have been getting are, and how much you are paying in fees per transaction.
How much does it cost to send money internationally?
The problem you have is that when it comes to sending money internationally, pinning down the costs involved is not easy. This is because different companies will charge different amounts and will give you different exchange rates depending not just on how much you are transferring at a time, but also, they will each take a ‘margin’ on the exchange rate. This is a way of increasing the amount of money they can make on the international transfer.
For example, let’s say you want to transfer £100,000 to a company in Germany. Your transfer will go from sterling to euros and your bank may charge you, say, £25 to make that payment if you use telephone banking to make the transfer. It could be lower, say, £15 if you make the transaction online.
The company receiving the money may also be charged by their bank, which could add another, say, £6 to the cost of the transaction. So, without taking any currency exchange values into account, you and your receiving party could already be paying up to £31 just to move money overseas.
Exchange rates and other products
Then, you need to take into account the exchange rates you are going to pay. These can vary considerably from company to company. Banks will typically offer worse rates than international money transfer specialists, who do nothing other than currency transfers day in, day out.
Let’s say you are moving money from sterling to euros. If you want to send £100,000 then the Barclays rate at the time of writing was €1.1234. This would give you €112,340 in euros. Remember, you would need to pay the additional fees on top of this.
Compare that with a money transfer specialist such as OFX, and you would receive €1.1778 for the same transaction at the time of writing. This would give you €117,780 – an extra €5,440. Plus, you would not need to pay the extra fees charged by most banks.
The foreign exchange specialists also have a variety of products that will help you save more money, especially if you make regular payments overseas. There is something called a ‘forward contract’ that allows you to fix the exchange rate you will get for a period of time, taking the guesswork out of exchange rates and can help businesses set their budgets more effectively.
There are other products that can help you mitigate risks and boost the chances of getting a better exchange rate for the transfers your business needs to make. Remember, these products are also available to individuals if you need to make regular transfers to deal with bills associated with an overseas property, for example.
Let us help you
If you want to learn more about how you can reduce the risk you take when making currency transfers, then please contact us for more details.