Exchanging Thoughts

Free exporting event promises to help Yorkshire businesses save thousands

This is just a quick post to let you know that we (4X Currency Corporation) are holding a breakfast briefing, in association with UK Trade & Investment and Leeds Chamber of Commerce on Thursday July 3^rd at the Radisson hotel in Leeds to help advise Yorkshire companies how to save money when importing and exporting.

I will be there and speaking on currency related issues, here is a quick list of the other speakers and their topcis:

· Recognise opportunities as the credit crunch bites (Colin Russell, UK Trade & Investment)

· Benefiting from the effect of the exchange rates on the pound  - (Colin Smith, former head of foreign exchange Commerzbank)

· Dispute resolution on overseas trades (Gerard Khoshnaw, Head of Commercial Dispute Resolution, The Law Society’s Cross Border and International Reference Group, Nabarro)

· Look for an opportunity in foreign VAT recovery (Martyn Redman, Chairman, Eurocash Corporation)

· Reduce the costs dramatically from your foreign currency transactions (Helen Scott, managing director, 4X Currency Corporation)

· International Leeds (Steve Haynes, International Trade Advisor Leeds Chamber of Commerce)

If you want any further information, check out our news release on it, or feel free to drop me an email.

I hope you can make it along.

Technorati Tags: foreign currency events,business advice,Leeds

New currency exchange service helps reduce risk for small businesses

I’ve been waiting anxiously for news on the members of the Russian doomsday cult which has been living in a cave for the last six months, and finally it came. They’ve all come out.  It all went a bit quiet after they went in there in October, armed with little more than some jars of pickled mushrooms and a conviction that the  world was about to end. Presumably the mushrooms were chosen because they do not fall into the category of processed food or carry bar codes, both of which the group believes are the work of Satan.

Their belief that the end was nigh was instilled in them by their leader, Pavel Kuznetsov, (currently undergoing psychiatric treatment) who predicted that the apocalypse would happen in April or May. Frankly, having survived the winter, which can’t be pleasant in a Russian cave, I’m a bit disappointed that they threw in the towel at the eleventh hour. Still at least they had a go.

Speaking of predicting the future, most of us can’t. And it’s a brave person these days who knows where these currency markets are going, or is willing to take a risk on them.

To that end, the good news is we have just launched our new forward trading service on the dealing platform, 4X Dealer. For those of you unfamiliar with a forward trade, it is simply ‘buy now, pay later’, and is a useful tool against the unpredictable foreign exchange market.

For example, if you are a business that knows you will receive US dollars in six month’s time, you can eliminate the risk of what the currency rate will be by selling the dollars now for settlement in six months. If the dollar weakens, you are locked into today’s rate. Of course, if it strengthens you will miss out on making extra profit, but many, especially smaller, businesses are more interested in minimising risk than taking a gamble on exchange rates.

We have an easy to use demo which shows you how a forward trade works, I have also been through the product in the attached video. If you want further information you can also check out our news release on the new service.

Forward trading may be the safe option, but just think of it this way. Surely it’s a better way of hedging your bets than sitting in a damp Russian cave with nothing to eat but mushrooms…

Technorati Tags: 4X Currency Corporation,Helen Scott,Forward Trading Currency,Russian Cult,SME business benefits

Trains, planes and automobiles and maybe even a blackberry

Well, what a strange week it’s been again. I’m beginning to wonder if this really is England. No earthquakes this week, but hurricanes.

And very badly-timed ones at that. The winds and rain struck just on the day I had to go to London to be judged as a finalist in the Blackberry Women and Technology awards where I have been short-listed in the Small and Medium sized Business category, and I had to get there and back in a day from Leeds.

The problem was the weather wasn’t playing ball and the trains didn’t like it. When I finally managed to get on one that was actually running, we were down to a 50mph speed limit because of the high winds, and worse, no bacon sandwiches!

It was all looking quite hopeless, but eventually the sun came out and we did get to London. Half an hour with the judges, then whisked to hair and make up to look very glam, then some filming for the big night.

So fingers crossed for 6^th May when the results are announced at a glittering ceremony. If nothing else, a Blackberry is the perfect vehicle for the mobile version of 4X Dealer™, which our programmers at Cybertrak will be working on soon for all those busy travelling Finance Directors.

I think FD’s are likely to want to keep an even closer eye on the foreign exchange markets at the moment. The Dollar continues to record new lows against the Euro on an almost daily basis, and is showing no signs of stopping. Similarly the Pound against the Euro.

This should be fantastic for UK companies exporting to Europe, and if they want a favourable Euro rate they should check out our latest web rates on 4X Dealer™.

Anyway, probably time to stop now. I’m just looking out of the window and the sun is shining. England, March, it’s not bad.

Technorati Tags: 4X Dealer,Currency,SME,Blackberry,Technology

Rising gas prices are enough to drive us all to drink

There’s been a bit of a nip in the air this week. It may be something to do with the sudden cold snap we had on Monday. I was rather unprepared for the freezing fog and the icy ground that greeted me when I threw open the curtains. But although the weather has warmed up a bit now, somehow the chill still seems to be there…

I think it’s just one of those weeks where it’s hard to find anything to warm you up, either physically or metaphorically. Let me illustrate what I mean by a few examples of the stuff that has surfaced in the news this week.

1. More than one in three small businesses has lost money as result of errors in international banking transactions, costing every small company in the country an average of £400 per year.

Despite the fact that more than half such errors are the fault of their bank, 17% of companies have been charged extra fees to rectify the problem. The whole thing costs the small business community some £100m per year.

2. British Gas has reported profits of £571m in 2007 for its residential arm, up from £95m in 2006, a year-on-year increase of some 600%.

Rather than reduce fuel prices to its customers, it has instead decided to raise them by 15%.

3. The cost of barley is now so high that a pint of beer in a pub will soon cost £4.

Re. point 1, I would advocate smaller businesses to think seriously about who they use to facilitate their overseas payments. The common mistakes: incorrect account names; human error; bank delays and problems with unsophisticated foreign receiving banks need not happen if you use a specialist electronic provider such as ourselves. We are set up specifically to deal with all this.

I can’t do much about points 2 and 3, but I do have a suggestion.

If your average small businessman is £400 a year out of pocket, he’s not going to be able to take solace at home because he won’t be able to afford to pay his new British Gas bill to keep his house warm.

The obvious place to go is down the pub, where it is not only warm and friendly, he can have a glass of ale and forget his financial sorrows. But at £4 a pint he can’t afford to do that either.

Why not then introduce a new tax on the banks and British Gas, which makes them donate their excess profits to beer? The £600 million or so collected would release an extra 150 million pints of free beer a year, thus giving everyone a warm and happy feeling and eliminating the need to go home and pay the gas bill.

Do you know, I’m not sure I need this balaclava on any more……

Technorati Tags: British Gas,Beer

Technorati Tags: Barley,Financial advice

I wonder if I could get hold of a cheap toe?

It’s mid February. About three months to go until the Edinburgh marathon, for which I should now be training madly. I haven’t booked my place yet – I was just mulling the various worthwhile causes to offer my jogging services to when I accidentally tripped over the sofa leg and broke my toe.

It sounds insignificant but it is remarkable how much you miss your little toe when it is in several pieces. The pain has subsided over the last couple of weeks, but I am still banned from wearing anything approaching attractive footwear, and, of course, no running.

The upshot of all this is that I have more time to sit around reading and thinking, and I have just come across two very interesting but rather disturbing facts, both on the BBC news site.

One is that we in Britain are now the largest spenders on cosmetic surgery in Europe. In 2006 we spent £497 million on ‘enhancement procedures’, almost three times as much as our nearest rival, Italy. We are second only to the US in our obsession with the pursuit of the perfect body, and the industry is growing. Many Brits are travelling abroad for these procedures, (in which case come to us for your currency needs – we might save you enough for an extra little nip or tuck).

The other is that one in five Britons has admitted to buying fake goods, and doesn’t see anything wrong with it. Sometimes they don’t know they are fake, but often they do and don’t care. Counterfeit merchandise is apparently a hugely growing area of business, costing UK businesses some £11 billion per year in lost revenue, and accounting for an estimated 30% of sales in some products. The counterfeit industry is now worth some 7% of all global trade.

The logical question that comes out of all this is how much overlap is there between the two stories? Has this counterfeiting business spread to the cosmetic implant industry yet? Are we British jetting to foreign climes and paying for what we believe to be real false body parts, only to be given cheap imitations from China? How many are in fact walking around with ‘fake fakes’? Whilst I in no way condone any illegitimate business activity, it has made me think… wonder if I could get hold of a cheap toe?

Technorati Tags: Edinburgh Marathon,Running,4X Currency Corporation,Currency Exchange,Helen Scott