CurrencyTransfer.com sets it sights on bigger clients
CurrencyTransfer.com, a currency exchange platform for &nbsp;small-to-medium-size businesses, plans to target bigger companies and is preparing a major funding round later this year. Its MD and co-founder Daniel Abrahams said that the forex market is one of the last areas of financial services where the end client does not have a clue what they are paying.
CurrencyTransfer.com, a currency exchange marketplace for businesses, is preparing a major funding round from institutional investors later this year, the company told Bank Innovation.

CurrencyTransfer.com has received an undisclosed amount of funding from angel investors including Errol Damelin, Gigi Levi, Barak Rabinowitz, and Itay Birnboim.

Innovative solutions abound for moving money across international borders, but while most focus on personal, low-value exchanges, London-based CurrencyTransfer.com is targeting the big money.

“Foreign exchange is one of the last areas of financial services where the end finance director, CFO or private client does not have a clue what they are paying,” Daniel Abrahams, CurrencyTransfer.com’s managing director and co-founder, told Bank Innovation. “This is wrong and highly unfair. You wouldn’t buy a house without knowing the final cost would you? With spreads, mid-market and cover rates, separate transfer fees, deceptive slogans of 0% commission, etc., comparing prices on an apples-to-apples basis is TOUGH!”

CurrencyTransfer.com has a minimum transfer amount of £2,000 ($3,100), and an average transfer size of £25,000 ($38,800). As such, it does not compete against pure-play remittance suppliers.

“Our platform, layout, tools, and functionality is all built with high-value transfers in mind,” Abrahams said.

The company waives transfer fees, building them into the exchange rate, and allows clients to book transfers on its marketplace. Most clients save in the neighborhood of 85% versus typical bank quotes per transfer, Abrahams said. The company’s own revenue comes from small fees from its payment partners on either end of the transaction.

The difference between foreign exchange for personal use and for businesses is not trivial — the customers have different sets of demands.

“A predominantly business foreign exchange marketplace like CurrencyTransfer.com has to be set up totally different to a mobile remittance product,” Abrahams said. “For instance, my customers want and demand forward contracts and hedging, benchmarking tools, post-trade analysis and a Personal Currency Concierge.”

His company’s typical customer is a “small-to-medium-size business that makes regular monthly, international transfers,” Abrahams said. The company has customers in 20 different countries across 12 industries. “Many customers are importing goods from abroad,” he said. “We have online marketplace sellers, international charities and private clients that are moving large sums of money abroad.”

The marketplace approach is bringing efficiency to every industry it touches, according to Abrahams. “In any industry where there is inefficiency, you will see a marketplace that disrupts,” he said. “We’ve seen it in the way we book flights, hotels and in recent times transportation. What we’re looking to do is no different in the field of global money transfers.”

What’s driving a lot of the change across financial services, Abrahams argues, is the transparency, access and increased choices for customers the internet is delivering.

“Firstly, you can now trade online and you don’t need to go into a branch to execute on a transfer,” he said. “Secondly, you’ve seen over the past five years a rise in non-bank, foreign exchange suppliers. The internet has facilitated the fact that ,to perform core banking services, you don’t have to use your bank.”

Abrahams sees considerable potential in the blockchain. “As a ‘pipe’, the blockchain is certainly a contender to facilitate instant money transfers across-borders, perhaps negating the need for SWIFT.” He is not so bullish on bitcoin, however. “We are many, many years away before we see a finance director or CFO executing foreign exchange via bitcoin,” he said.

While CurrencyTransfer.com is based in London, it also has a presence in Tel Aviv. Abrahams noted that both had particular strengths. “I think the startup ecosystem has more depth in Tel Aviv, but I think investors and employees ‘get’ fintech more in London,” he said. “I mean you only have to look at a stat which shows there are more fintech employees [in London] than either New York or the Valley.”

But the scene in Israel deserves special attention, because it is perhaps less known in the U.S. “I’m seeing banks go ‘all in’ with fintech innovation here in Israel,” Abrahams said. “Bank Leumi are exceptionally active, and they get heavily involved in the FinTech Aviv community, which CurrencyTransfer.com staff members set up. We run bimonthly events. Israel is seeing some big companies bloom in the field of FinTech – eToro, BillGuard, Payoneer to name a few.”