How John saves money on Euro sales with Currencies Direct

I was chatting to my mate John Pemberton a few days ago and he told me how he’s been steadily expanding his cross border trade. Amazon however threw up a problem by insisting that he have a Eurozone bank account if he wanted to sell into Spain and Italy. John agreed to tell Tamebay readers how he’s now using Currencies Direct for overseas banking and saving money at the same time:

I recently approached Currencies Direct as I’m expanding our retail operation on Amazon and will be selling to Spain and Italy. Amazon currently do not allow sales payments to be transferred to a UK bank account in these two territories, so we looked into alternative ways to open a European bank account. Dealing direct with the banks is a bit of a minefield, and extremely difficult to do.

When I came across Currencies Direct, they explained how we could have our Euro payments from Spain and Italy credited into a current account operated by them. In addition we could also have payments generated in Amazon Germany and France also credited into the same account. I jumped at the opportunity as the rates offered by them are far better than the wholesale rate provided by Amazon. We worked out the difference in the rate meant that we got back an extra 2% on our sales price on all items sold on Amazon in Euros which is quite a chunk.

To set up the Euro account took only a few days – as a limited company I provided Currencies Direct with some basic company information through an online form. A few days later, an email and a phone call confirmed my acceptance.

Once our Currencies Direct account was set up they supplied banking details for us to use which I added to our Amazon banking page. A couple of weeks later I received an email with confirmation of my credits (in Euros) of the payments Currencies Direct had received. I could then decide whether to keep the money there, or have it transferred into my UK bank account.

A few months later, I was introduced to the concept of hedging – where I can secure a better rate for future credits that I knew were coming. It’s still early days, and I am learning about the best ways to manage this but again I was impressed with the options open to me. Currencies Direct are always looking at ways to maximise my money.

I was impressed with the professionalism, and support at each stage from Currencies Direct. I fully recommend them to anyone selling on overseas marketplaces, after all they save me money and provide a good service – what more could one want?