Overwhelmed by FX Administration? Your Provider Can Help With That

Foreign exchange isn’t always about the big trades. For many organizations that deal with international currencies, they find that their FX needs start small. It may not seem like it, but your routine, day-to-day operations could be a larger FX risk exposure than you think.

Whether your ordinary operations are taking up time and resources that could—and should—be devoted to other matters or your current processes aren’t as efficient as they could be, one important step to managing your organization’s FX risk is taking a look at how your organization is handling transactions.

If you feel that you’re having trouble handling your transaction volume or you’re not handling your international payments as well as you could be, don’t worry: this is where your FX provider can help you out.

What can go wrong with day-to-day transactions?

Depending on how many your business makes each day, these typical, everyday operations could be taking up a large portion of your business’s time and resources. This time and resources could be more valuably spent elsewhere. Assess your operations and think carefully—are there any areas of your business that you think you’re neglecting because of how much time you need to devote to minute transactions? Are you missing out on the bigger picture because you’re too focused on the small things? When you assess your foreign exchange risk exposures, remember to consider everyday operations as well as the larger scope.

In addition, elaborate, inconvenient processes could end up causing trouble for your business. If, for example, you rely on employees to take care of manual data entry or transactions, there’s always the chance that human error could cause some unnecessary delays, or worse.

This is a common problem for fast-growing SMEs. Founders and owners want to monitor international payments and ensure that everything is being taken care of according to their standards, but they don’t have the time to monitor and physically process everything the way they’d like to.

Who should you turn to in order to ensure that your payments are being taken care of in a way that is efficient but still effective and up to your standards? This is where your FX provider comes in.

How can your foreign exchange provider help?

As we’ve said before, your foreign exchange provider does much more than help you find the best exchange rates. FX providers offer a wide range of products and services to assist their clients with their overseas payments, and one of these services is processing (or even automating) payments.

For example, your provider may be able to create a system that grants some users administrator rights to do the processing work while reserving payment authority for specific individuals. They can also offer secure, reliable, and straightforward processing, and they should be able to help you trace delayed payments. Depending on the volume and nature of your payments, they may also be able to help you automate them, or at least vastly cut down on the amount of time and resources it takes to make a transaction.

Finding the right solutions can take time, and it starts with the right FX provider. If your current provider doesn’t offer these solutions, or you haven’t found theirs to be as effective as you’d like, it’s important to shop around until you can find the provider that can help you to manage the administrative side of your transactions while maintaining the right level of quality and security.

At Xe, we provide a broad range of currency services and products to businesses around the world. We will work with you to ensure that your foreign exchange procedures are the right ones for your business and its needs.

Ready to learn more about our business solutions? Visit our Business page for more information about our offerings and to take the first steps in enhancing your organization’s foreign exchange risk management.