Is Garton Global Payments Safe?

Company size:

Garton Global Payments/Garton FX is a relatively new foreign exchange company, established in 2019 (with trading beginning 2020). The firm was founded by Niall Walsh, a young entrepreneur who previously headed up the Irish division at FairFX. With this in mind, it’s little surprise that Garton FX appears to be gaining ground in Ireland too.

Garton Global Payments was launched in order to one-up banks and other currency brokers by improving the level of service and rates offered to clients. Whether it’s businesses paying overseas suppliers or individuals buying a dream holiday home overseas, Garton can help.

With a team of under 10 employees, Garton FX is highly focused on the service it provides. Garton transfers the benefits that come through being a small and agile company by offering fast response times and a personalised service. The majority of clients get to speak directly with the owner Niall and discuss a suitable hedging strategy that’s relevant for their own individual or business requirements.

Regulated By:

Financial Conduct Authority, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre, FinCEN  (All via the Currencycloud integration), Central Bank of Netherlands (Europe).

Conclusion:

Garton Global Payments is a relatively new company that has wisely selected a trusted partner in Currencycloud in order to meet its regulatory obligations. In this regard, by utilising Currencycloud, Garton is a safe provider that takes the FCA precautions necessary in order to keep client funds secure.

One thing we want to highlight is Garton’s use of the term ‘segregated client accounts’ and ‘safeguarded’ on their security page. Segregated simply means that client funds are kept separate from company funds, ensuring the two are never mixed up and avoiding potential operational issues. This is an FCA requirement for all regulated payment institutions. Safeguarded means your funds are kept safe in the unlikely event of the provider’s insolvency. Under electronic money and payment services regulations, funds are ‘safeguarded’ in some instances, such as when funds are in use for a current transaction, but in other instances, such as when a deposit is held on a forward contract, that money is not safeguarded, it is only segregated. Generally, this is how all firms who hold an electronic money licence operate – it wouldn’t mean Garton operated any worse than its competitors but the wording on their site is ambiguous. Be sure to understand where Garton stands on this before holding money with the firm.

Garton FX Client Reviews

Research:

There are 143 Garton Global Payments reviews that can currently be found on TrustPilot. Rated at 4. 7 / 5, virtually all of the reviews are excellent. There is just one complaint and three users who rated the service as 4 / 5. With a perfect 5 / 5 score on Google, all 61 reviewers left Garton a perfect rating. It’s a relatively small sample but Garton scores well on its reviews so far.

Positive:

The positive reviews of Garton Global Payments had the following to say:

• The personal service is excellent
• Great for moving money in/out of Ireland
• Helped to time market to achieve a better rate
• Would happily recommend to others
• Simple trading platform

Negative:

The only negative review of Garton Global Payments so far complains of a sales agent that made repetitive calls, even when they were told that the client was not interested in proceeding.

There is also some constructive feedback left in two of the three reviews which rated the firm 4 / 5. One client found both the rate and service to be good but said that their contact was quite hard to get hold of over the phone on a number of occasions. Another reviewer mentioned that they encountered some issues with the online platform.

Conclusion:

141 TrustPilot reviews is still quite a small sample but it’s clear the firm has maintained a high level of client satisfaction to date. Clients seem almost unanimously satisfied with the level of service they have received from Garton FX. Managing Director Niall is frequently mentioned throughout the reviews for his friendly and professional approach. As for the complaint, it’s not entirely clear if this is even legitimate. It doesn’t directly mention anything to do with a payment and no staff members are highlighted. Niall has also responded to the complaint but didn’t hear back from the reviewer. As for the review which mentioned their account manager was difficult to get hold of, Niall has responded to this and put it down to growing pains. With staff on other calls they are currently growing the team to ensure they can keep up with the rapid growth they’re experiencing.

Overall, we can say it’s a good start but we can’t recommend Garton on reviews alone (Currencies Direct for example has a 4.9/5 Trustpilot rating based on 6,500+ reviews).

Garton FX Rates & Fees

Fees: Not specified. They will be charged a payment fee by Currencycloud themselves but whether they pass this fee onto the customer or whether they factor this fee into their exchange rate spread is not known.

Exchange Rates: Usually, we can get a rough estimate as to the exchange rate spread applied when a company like Garton Global Payments supplies the date and time of their mystery shop comparison.

Garton has supplied both the date and time of their mystery shop but we aren’t able to come to any reasonable conclusions on this occasion. In fact, it leaves us with quite a lot of questions.

Garton tells us that the rate comparison was conducted at 12:10 on 03/02/2022. A day which saw a lot of volatility for GBPEUR –  a daily high of 1.2065 and a daily low of 1.1893. By using charting data from investment.com the closest we could get to this time was 11:00 on 03/02/2022 at which point the rate was 1.1925. This would suggest Garton themselves made a loss on the trade if they offered a client a rate of 1.2043. We have to assume the rate bounced back up by 12:10. If we use the daily interbank high of 1.2065 it suggests an exchange rate spread of 0.18% spread was applied by Garton. Indeed, unless 12:10 happened to coincide with the daily interbank high, Garton would have offered an even better exchange rate spread. It’s also worth highlighting that not even Garton themselves would get the interbank rate from Currencycloud, they’d get a wholesale rate very close to this, but not the interbank rate (indicating an even smaller spread).

If a spread of under 0.18% is available on a £50,000 trade then this would be considered a very good exchange rate. To us, however, none of this adds up – we’d encourage readers to ask Garton themselves what their spreads are and then compare these with other money transfer companies. What’s more, the mystery shop is now outdated – a website should really have a price comparison made within the last month or so.

It’s worth highlighting that one reviewer commented that they were able to get a better exchange rate with Garton Global Payments than they were with Wise (who charge around 0.5%).

Limits: Not specified. We have to assume that as a small business they can be quite flexible with their min and max payment amounts.

Conclusion:

There is little information supplied around payment fees and limits and the mystery shop brings to light a whole bunch of questions as to the exchange rates offered. We’d have to see the raw data they used, including the interbank rate at 12:10, but it doesn’t seem to add up to us. A spread of under 0.18% offered as standard on a £50,000 trade is good but doesn’t make a lot of sense given the interbank rate and market movements on 03/02/2022. Take caution before trading and ask a member of the Garton team to clarify their exchange rate spreads. The feedback shows us that the Garton team are very helpful so are likely to provide answers to any questions you have.

Global Reach & Services

Research:

• Dedicated Dealer: Yes, likely the MD Niall himself
• Offices: London, UK
• Ways to approach: Email, Telephone, Whatsapp or Online.
• Translations: English
• Accepts clients: UK, Europe, US, Canada
• Currencies Handled: 40
• Client reviews: 100% positive.

Conclusion:

The partnership Garton Global Payments has with Currencycloud puts them in a unique position for a small FX company. Due to utilising Currencycloud’s licensing, Garton can register clients from the UK, Europe, US and Canada. However, at the moment, it seems like the majority of clients are from either the UK or Ireland. Perhaps one thing to consider is that access to Currencycloud’s compliance infrastructure is likely to come at a cost to Garton which could push up the cost for the end user.

The 40 currencies offered by Garton FX is also quite impressive and is another benefit from the partnership with Currencycloud.

Business clients can open digital currency accounts in a number of different currencies in order to receive money from abroad. This again is a very neat benefit for a small company. Though as we understand, the Currencycloud solution runs the accounts from the UK so remitters will have to pay international payment fees for transfers from outside this jurisdiction. Companies like WorldFirst and Wise have their own multi currency account solutions with international accounts which are held locally in 10+ different countries. Making it easier to do business like a local.

As it stands, Garton is run out of just one office in London so the main drawback we can see is that customer support and account management is only available in English. However, this is unlikely to bother the majority of clients who are based in either the UK or Ireland.

Additional Functionalities

A complete list of functionality includes:

• Forward Contracts
• Stop Loss Orders
• Limit Orders
• Mass payments
• Collection Accounts
• Risk Management/Hedging Solutions

All of these solutions are available either on the phone or through the Garton FX online platform (powered by Currencycloud). Where Garton seems to receive the best feedback is for the quality of service the team provides. To make the most of the Garon FX service, clients should call through to the team to discuss their currency requirements and design a suitable hedging strategy.

Conclusion:

Despite being a small company, the partnership Garton Global Payments has with Currencycloud means it’s able to offer all of the major hedging products you would expect from the most successful money transfer providers in existence today. A growing number of companies are now starting to offer collection accounts but again, it’s unique for a company the size of Garton to be able to do so. Functionality is good and supported by a small and dedicated team.