Global Reach Money Transfer Review

Global Reach (formerly: Global Reach Partners) was originally established in 2001 as 4 separate brand names Corporate FX, Private FX, Smart FX and Travel FX, which were merged into Global Reach in 2012. The original entrepreneurs that established the firm more than 15 years ago, Stewart Blake and Mark Smith-Halvorsen, still take an active role in its management.

The company started off focusing mainly on corporate clients, and we assume this is still their largest audience as their numbers reflect very high trading volumes per client (with 10,000 clients and 2bn in trading, each client is moving GBP 200,000 annually on average).

Global Reach is one of the companies that keep reinventing itself. By constantly expanding its offering and the currencies it can deal with, Global Reach Group attracts new prospective audiences every year, and demonstrates a strong corporate growth year by year (55% in 2015). Currently, there are 85 employees working for Global Reach, in an office in Coleman Street, at the heart of the City of London, and 170 employees in total post merger with FC Exchange which has been acquired in 2016 with the backing of private equity investor Inflexion.

Who is FC Exchange?

London-headquartered FC Exchange (FC stands for “foreign currency”) was established in 2005, and holds an 1A2 Credit Rating from D&B. The firm is currently trading more than £5bn annually combined with its parent company Global Reach.

The firms unique selling point is customer satisfaction. Unlike other companies in this industry which reward their dealers and account managers based on much profit they turned for the company, FC Exchange took a different approach. FC Exchange choose to measure their employees by the level of satisfaction and retention of the clients they are handling. FC Exchange has helped over 25,000 people move money since 2005.

Merged Company – Global Reach Group – from October, 2018

After the merge, it was decided that FC Exchange will handle all private clients, while Global Reach will be fully dedicated to corporate clients. This has been the situation up until October of 2018, when FC Exchange has rebranded itself as Global Reach Partner’s private clients desk. The two companies are now named simply Global Reach, and this Global Reach money transfer review entails both firms.

Global Reach is one of the top 10 largest money transfer firms in the UK, and in particular after their recent purchase of FC Exchange, and it had gained a high level of recognition in various categories:

Feefo 2019 Gold Service Award

Best Small Companies to Work For 2014 – The Sunday Times

Sunday Times Profit Fast Track 100 (2012)

Credit Level A2, Dun & Bradstreet

Best Accreditation Standard (b.co.uk): Best Company To Work For 2016

Global Reach Group is a highly reliable money transfer company. In fact, it is undeniably one of the top 10 firms of its kind in the UK. It has been in business for longer than the vast majority of other currency brokerages on the market, moving large volumes abroad each year, while maintaining great feedback across the board.

With FC Exchange’s acquisition, the company is growing at a staggering pace and increasing its presence in the private clients’ side. It is still less internationalised than some of the industry titans, with fewer offices abroad, less regulatory authorities supervising them and unable to take on American clients, but they are still up there at the top when it comes to reliability.