Currencies Direct has been operating as an international payments specialist for over 23 years and has the highest level of regulation via the Financial Conduct Authority.
Our Collection Accounts can save you up to 75% every time you convert your sales from marketplaces like Amazon, without the hassle of opening local bank accounts in the countries you sell to. Collect multiple currencies and manage your transfers from one central and easy to use online system. Furthermore, you decide when you convert your funds. Save time with automated transfers or ask us to notify you when the rates are in your favour.
List of questions covered in this video:
00:23 What problems do you solve for Amazon sellers and what services do you provide?
02:35 What currencies do you cover and in what countries do you operate?
04:18 What are the fees involved for Amazon sellers using your service?
05:45 What are the requirements for an Amazon seller to join your service? What kind of documents do you request?
06:44 There are quite a few service providers like yours in the market. Could you compare yourself to others? Why would the Ecommerce seller choose Currencies Direct?
09:07 Some of the Amazon sellers especially in Europe, are concerned of being suspended because they are changing critical information in their accounts. Can you say anything about that?
Transcript – Introduction to Currencies Direct
[00:00] Augustas: Are you looking for international money transfer service provider? Check out my interview with Deepak Goyal from Currencies Direct where he presents his company services and explains how they can help Amazon and eCommerce sellers.
[00:21] Deepak: Hello Augustas. How are you?
[00:23] Augustas: I’m good, thank you. So could you please tell us what problems do you solve for Amazon sellers and what services do you provide?
[00:31] Deepak: Yes, of course. Amazon sellers are very interesting businesses. They have a lot of challenges everyday in running their businesses. Some of the main challenges they face when it comes to their financial transactions are around how to effectively collect their sales process from Amazon, especially when they’re international sales proceeds. And the other challenge is when they’re paying suppliers overseas, how they can optimize that activity and reduce the risk and all of this. Let me give you an example. If you are a business based in Germany and you are selling your products into the United States, or the UK on the Amazon platform, you’re generating sales in U.S dollars and GBP. However, your home currency is Euro and you need the money back in your account in Euro. When Amazon does that process for you, the cost of that transaction can be quite high in some cases, up to 4% of the turnover of your sales are lost in conversion.
[01:38] Deepak: Also, you do not have any control of when that transaction occurs, so on the particular day that you’re receiving your money, if the market is trading at a low level, you will be penalized automatically without having any control. So that’s one of the main challenges of Amazon sellers selling on Amazon. Now, if a seller is buying products from China, they need to send the money in Chinese Yuan or Dollars or whichever currency you’ve negotiated, maybe even Euros. If you’re sending euros and there’s no problem. However, if you are exchanging currency from Euros into Chinese Yuan or U.S dollars, again, it’s probably your retail bank is going to take a high exchange rate on that conversion, which means the cost price of your product is going to get more expensive. These are two of the big challenges that online sellers have.
[02:35] Augustas: Alright. So basically you provide a platform where they can exchange their currency and do transfers internationally. So it involves a geographical regions. Can you tell what currencies do you cover and in what countries do you operate?
[02:53] Deepak: Yes, of course. So look, we have clients in many different countries. Most of our are located in the U.S, UK, France, Germany, China, and increasingly we’re getting a lot of Indians sellers coming online as well. We even have some sellers located in Australia, and in Japan as well. We operate with clients in pretty much every jurisdiction in the world. So there’s hardly any restrictions on were you as a seller can be based. And we provide bank accounts so that the sellers can actually use those bank accounts to collect the funds from Amazon. Let’s say those bank accounts are located in 5 markets. They’re located in the United States, UK, Eurozone, Canada, and also in Japan. So we cover 5 of the Amazon marketplaces.
[03:49] Augustas: And for transferring money to let’s say to China. So you also cover Chinese currency, right?
[03:55] Deepak: Yes, of course. On the way out, we call them outbound or supplier payments. There are over 65 different currencies that we deal in and you can make payments to over 150 different countries around the world. So we very rarely have the situation where a customer says, can I make a payment? And we have to say no.
[04:18] Augustas: That’s great. Can you cover a little bit about your fees? What are the fees involved for Amazon sellers using your service?
[04:25] Deepak: Well, yes of course. We like to provide a very tailored service. We do have fees on our service of course, we operate a profitable business. What that means is that we like to give our customers the opportunity to talk to us about their requirements and we base our fees based on the size of your requirements. If you are a very big seller who has 7 figure sales on Amazon, you are a top 100 seller, then your exchange rates are going to be sharper, because you’ve got a larger volume. If you’re a small seller, that’s just starting out and your fees will be comparatively higher.
[05:09] Deepak: Our fees range from 1.5% downwards, so I think that’s a pretty good indication. And the larger you become as a seller, the more ability you have with us to negotiate those fees.
[05:23] Augustas: Yeah. So obviously it is 3-4 times saving comparing to Amazon fees.
[05:28] Deepak: Exactly, right . And the best thing is that enables the sellers to get into the buy box because the algorithms in Amazon often use price as a key determinant in who is being in the buy box with Amazon, which is the most important place.
[05:45] Augustas: And what are the requirements for Amazon seller to join your service? What kind of documents do you request?
[05:52] Deepak: So it depends on where you’re based. We require some identification documents on the seller. So a government issued a document such as a passport driving license, we require sometimes proof of your home address such as a bank statement, and we require information about your business. If you’re running a limited company or a registered company, we may ask you for your business and corporation certificate. We don’t always need all of this information, but we sometimes say to our customers it’s best to provide it so that we can make the application. If you’re concerned or you want to know more before you make the application, you can just get in touch with us and contact us and tell us where you’re located and that’s the type of your business. And we can give you a much more detailed and concise list that is tailored to your own business.
[06:44] Augustas: There are quite a few service providers like yours in the market. Could you compare yourself to others? Why would the Ecommerce seller choose Currencies Direct?
[06:57] Deepak: Yes, of course. You’re right. There are some great providers in the market. It’s a very competitive space, which means it’s a very good situation for the seller. They can choose which provider to work with. The number one factor I would use as a seller to determine which provider to use is the safety and security of my money. Where is the company located? Do they have a UK office? Are they regulated in the correct way to service and supply that business? So security is a key concern to sellers. Currencies Direct has a level one rating with Dun and Bradstreet. It’s the highest credit rating possible. And with Dun and Bradstreet also we are regulated by the UK FCA as an E-money institution, which is the correct registration and regulation required for the business that we do. So both the safety and security is number one.
[07:57] Deepak: We’ve also been going 17 years as a business. It’s actually longer than that now, but 17 years is what I say, running the online seller business, or since 2009. So we’ve been working with online sellers specifically for almost 10 years, which I think is very important. We’ve got a lot of experience of working in this field. We have great coverage on all the bank accounts we provide, and that’s pretty critical to a company. If you’re going to grow in the future to new marketplaces, you need to know that the company that you’re working with can grow with you. But above and beyond everything else, we pride ourselves on customer service. It’s an old adage, everyone says customer service, but if you look at Trustpilot, Fifo, and if you look at the forums, the chat forum rooms of online sellers and you look at the feedback that the Currencies Direct gets, it has categorically the best feedback score of any of the providers. And I think that’s the most important thing for sellers. We’ve got social proof that we are really adding value to our customers.
[09:07] Augustas: Sounds great. And the last question is, when using services like Currencies Direct, Amazon sellers would need to change their bank accounts on their Amazon accounts information, and some of them especially in Europe, are concerned of being suspended because they are changing critical information in their accounts. Can you say anything about that?
[09:30] Deepak: Yes, of course. We do get customers approaching us when they first wanted to use our services, asking the same question. Let me explain what happens and why is this a risk and a concern for sellers. Amazon uses what the seller is telling them in order to pay the money. So if a seller says to the Amazon, please pay in this bank account, then Amazon will pay to that bank account. There is a very big risk to Amazon and the seller of a hacker, hacking the account and creating a false bank account within Amazon and pulling all of the sellers money out of the bank account. So there’s a big risk of fraud occurring within Amazon, without the seller or Amazon knowing. So this is why Amazon are always very protective and careful when you ask to change the bank account.
[10:27] Deepak: They want to be sure that it is you, that’s making the request. And they also want to be sure that the bank account is a genuine bank account, that’s authorized to receive the money owned by you as a seller. Currencies Direct has a relationship with the Amazon seller verification team. We produce a certificate which is recognized by the Amazon office, which means when a seller and a customer of ours uses our bank account, they are often asked to submit a certificate which we provide to them into the Amazon platform. Now, when that platform request is put into Amazon, it will pop up saying, please submit a bank statement or a certificate. If you add the Currencies Direct certificate, which we will give to you, that certificate will enable Amazon to verify that these bank account is a genuine bank account, making them be sure that there’s a lower risk of fraud as a result of that verification.
[11:29] Deepak: Now, Amazon’s system is automated pretty much all of the time. However, it has to be a human that checks that document. So what happens is if you change the bank account, Amazon will not pay you the money out until that certificate is being checked. It will not suspend your selling account, but it will wait until it verifies the bank account before it makes a payment. And I think that’s the concern of some sellers where Amazon have taken maybe 1 day to verify that document. And in that time, the seller has not been able to receive the payment, that is the only real concern. It is only a concern if your payment is going to be received at the time that the bank account is being changed. There is usually a 2 week cycle of payments that go to Amazon sellers. So if you change your bank account details as soon as you receive the payment, shouldn’t cause you any kind of delay or issue at all. Especially given, Amazon recognize who Currencies Director are as a provider of bank accounts to Amazon sellers. I mean we in fact helped Amazon open up the Amazon Italy marketplace, back when they launched it in 2009-2010. So we were the exclusive provider for the accounts. So we’re well known to Amazon.
[12:57] Augustas: So it sounds like Currencies Direct is a really good service for International Amazon Ecommerce sellers. Thank you very much Deepak for your time and good luck in your business bye bye.
[13:09] Deepak: Thank you Augustas, great to speak to you and see you later.
