For our clients, an international transaction is more than just a payment. Foreign exchange rates and fees directly affect their pricing, and ultimately have a big impact on their profit. So we think of foreign exchange as part of the wider working capital requirements for our clients.
Our relationship managers really understand their clients’ businesses. They understand their balance sheets, their payment cycles; they know the consequences of a missed payment. They also know how the foreign exchange market operates. So it’s not just about the transactions – our FX relationship managers assist in providing the right market information at the tight time to aid our clients buy and sell decisions.
We can assist in providing updates to the global banking network, so if anything changes to correspondent banking arrangements relating to your payment we can ensure your payment is structured correctly, making certain the on-time delivery of payment to your supplier.
For our clients that one-on-one relationship with their account manager is vital – they have a direct phone number and email address to contact them. We also offer a 24-hour a day, five days a week service, so clients can contact us whenever they need to.
For me it’s about more than availability – our relationship managers are also proactive in alerting their clients to changes in the market. For example, they might call a client to let them know the value of the dollar has just dropped, and discuss options around what course of action the client would like to take.
At the end of the day we don’t force a ‘one buyer fits all’ approach - we tailor our service to suit our clients’ businesses. Our job is to save time and cost for our clients, and negate risk. They need to know their funds are going to get to suppliers on time and at the most competitive rate.
