It’s nearly ten years since I left my job dodging London’s traffic selling cigarette machines in favour of working as foreign exchange dealer in a dingy room behind a bureau de change kiosk in Marble Arch. Having recently moved to Holland Park in West London this opportunity was a very appealing one with only a twenty minute commute on the central line and the chance to work with three of my closest pals.
It was March 2004 and I was 22 (See above image) and the world of foreign exchange was somewhat different (and slower) than what it is today. Google and search in general was still in its infancy and many customers were still favouring Teletext over hunting around the internet to track live foreign exchange rates.
The process of booking a foreign exchange transaction back then was a little more convoluted than it is now and went a little like this. A client would call; confirm an exchange rate verbally on the telephone and after rushing them off the phone I would then secure the purchased currency with our bank (the deal counterparty). That was the relatively easy part before the dreaded admin work which involved me manually editing a word document, adding the correct exchange rates and amounts (a lot of room for error here) before saving, attaching and finally sending an email to the client not forgetting our bank details for settlement of their pounds sterling.
The onus was now on my client “Mr Smith” to pay for his ordered currency by electronic transfer using the default option of a visit to his bank branch. In those days’ telephone banking had low daily limits and consumers remained cautious over using internet banking especially on larger amounts.
So off Mr Smith went to his local branch and after half an hour trying to find a parking space in his local town and standing in a queue for ten minutes the cashier requested the completion of a complicated bank transfer form by hand. The form requested the bank details of who he wanted to pay (us) along with the sender’s “life history” and lots of other unnecessary information. Upon close inspection of the handwritten form and a minor interrogation, the cashier charged a fee of £30 for the remittance of funds with no guarantee as to whether funds would hit our account that day or the following day. This was not massively helpful to my clients as our transfers were often sent last minute to pay installments on overseas property purchases with frantic lawyers chasing payment to complete the sale.
Internet banking.
Thankfully this process started to get easier over the years when security improvements and increased usage of internet banking made the movement of money much easier. The introduction of Faster Payments Service (FPS) in 2008 allowed clients to send up to £10,000 the same day online or by phone banking and those with higher limits able to transfer much larger sums.
Debit card payments
More recently the process has become even more seamless with many of the top UK foreign exchange brokers taking advantage of developments in technology and banking which means they can now accept sterling payments with a UK debit card. There are some minor restrictions that each company applies including daily and transaction limits and some companies can only accept debit cards if you book online or are an existing customer. To make the job of finding the most suitable foreign exchange service easier we have now listed all the companies on our website that accept debit cards within our comparison table under “range of services”.
Find out more here https://currencytoday.co.uk/currency-transfers/
All in all this is a great move in helping those individuals looking to send money overseas as quickly and easily as possible without any hassle. In the future this will get even easier with some companies now allowing you to store debit card details securely online (avoiding the need to re-enter information every transaction) and offer the ability to complete the whole process on your Smartphone. I’m sure you will agree this is a far better prospect than standing in a queue at the bank, talking to automated telephone systems or trying to remember internet banking login details.
