Blog / tips

There is no doubt that social media is changing the way we do business. Frustrated customers, sick of dealing with unresponsive customer service desks, are now able to air their concerns over Twitter, Facebook, even YouTube and the like, potentially reaching thousands or even millions of people, and companies are being forced to take note.

There’s another side to this new power though, and that’s the ability consumers now have to reward the companies they like with a positive review. Whether it’s a Google +1, a Facebook like, a positive tweet, or a forum post, it’s easy now to let people know when you’ve had a good experience or like a product. This is not just a nice way of saying thank you – it can actually make the product cheaper!

I think everyone understands that...

  Imagine that your local supermarket started advertising its products, in newspapers, and on the shelves, at the wholesale prices, only hitting customers for the higher marked-up cost when they arrived at the checkout. Nobody would put up with that kind of nonsense! In fact, if they dared try it, somebody, maybe the local Consumers’ Association, would shut them down. You just don’t get away with that kind of thing these days, right?

Believe it or not, something similar to this is done by many of the online foreign exchange brokers, and nobody bats an eyelid. Consumer protection doesn’t seem to apply in...

The market for foreign exchange and international money transfers is big. Really big. Not only do you have corporations paying overseas invoices or receiving foreign payments, but you also have, for example, expats (both working and retired), people making foreign investments, or buying or selling property overseas, and international students, most of whom have a need at some stage or another to send money to foreign bank accounts.

Until recently, if you were one of these people, you only really had two options: use your bank directly, or use a specialist currency broker, which is not a bank, but a company that focuses solely on foreign exchange and money transfers.

Even though things are gradually changing, the vast majority of people still use their bank. I’m guessing...

Last week I received a flyer from An Post (the Irish Post Office, if you’re not from these parts), telling me that “An Post sells Sterling and Dollars COMMISSION FREE”. Well, who doesn’t these days? It seems to be the standard line everywhere; banks, bureau de change at the airport, and also most of the online brokers specialising in foreign bank transfers. What does it actually mean? Not a lot really, and in fact I believe that its use is often deliberately misleading.

When you change money with your bank, or at the airport, or almost anywhere else for that matter, it is reasonable to assume that the person selling you the foreign currency is taking some sort of a cut. After all, they’re providing you with a service. This cut, unless you know better, you would probably assume...

I can't say we were pushed into this, because having a blog on the site is something that we'd planned to do even prior to our launch in late April 2010. Still, a lot of our customers and friends have told us recently that, to paraphrase one of the more polite suggestions, "it's high time we got off of our asses and started to tell our story a little better" – thanks JM!

So, welcome to "Currency Affairs". We plan to keep you updated with progress at CurrencyFair, of course, but perhaps more importantly (as 3 of us are ex-bankers) we will give you some much-needed insider info into the murky world of foreign exchange transfers. We'll tell you what the real charges are when sending money abroad, the ways in which many of the fx providers in the market go about concealing these...