Ask most business owners how much they pay to send money internationally and they will tell you about the transfer fee, typically £15–30 per transaction. What they do not realise is that the transfer fee is the smallest part of what they are actually paying.
The real cost is hidden inside the exchange rate itself. And for businesses making regular international payments, it adds up to a sum that would make most finance directors wince.
When you ask your bank to convert pounds into euros, or dollars, or any other currency, they do not give you the interbank rate. The interbank rate is the rate at which banks trade with each other, the true mid-market price. Your bank applies a spread on top of this rate: they buy low and sell high, pocketing the difference. For retail and business customers, that spread is typically 2.5–3.5% above the interbank rate. You will not see this figure on your statement. It is baked silently into the rate you are quoted.
On a £50,000 payment to a foreign supplier, a 3% bank spread costs you approximately £1,500 per transaction. A business making this payment monthly is losing over £18,000 a year to bank margin alone.
For businesses with regular international commitments, supplier invoices, overseas payroll, software licences billed in USD, logistics costs in euros, the cumulative impact is significant. A company with a monthly international payment book of £100,000 could be paying £25,000–35,000 a year more than necessary, purely in bank margin.
That is not a rounding error. For many businesses, it is equivalent to a part-time member of staff, a marketing budget, or a meaningful chunk of capital expenditure.
The margin is invisible because it is embedded in the rate. If your bank quotes you a conversion rate and you accept it, there is no line item on the confirmation that says "margin: £1,500." The money simply is not there when it arrives on the other side. For businesses that have always used their bank for international payments, this has become a normalised cost, one they have never questioned because they have never seen it broken down. Many of our clients tell us they assumed the bank margin was "just how it worked." It is not.
Margin aside, there are other ways in which bank infrastructure is poorly suited to international payment needs. Settlement times are slower. A same-day transfer through a specialist provider often takes two to three days through a bank. The ability to forward-fix rates, use limit orders, or manage currency exposure in a structured way is either absent or cumbersome through high street banking relationships. And the level of service, a dedicated relationship manager who understands your business and your currencies, simply does not exist.
Moving your international payments to Dinheiro takes less time than most clients expect. We set up your account, introduce you to your dedicated relationship manager, and can typically be executing payments within 48–72 hours of your first contact. There is no long-form paperwork process, no lock-in, and no obligation to move your entire payment book immediately if you would rather start with one currency or one supplier relationship.
Most businesses find the process takes one conversation and a few days of onboarding. The savings start immediately.
The easiest way to find out what you are losing is to ask us to run a comparison on a recent payment you have made through your bank. We will show you the interbank rate at the time, your bank's rate, and what you would have paid with us. No obligation, no pressure.
Ask us to run a comparison on a recent payment. We will show you the difference in black and white, no obligation, no pressure.