Global Reach Partners Corporate FX & Money Transfer Review

Company Information and Credibility

Company size:  

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 Partners 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 Partners is one of the companies that keep reinventing itself. By constantly expanding its offering and the currencies it can deal with, GRP 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 Partners, in an office in Coleman Street, at the heart of the City of London, and 170 employees in total with sister company FC Exchange which has been acquired in 2016 with the backing of private equity investor Inflexion.

After the merge, it was decided that FC Exchange will handle all private clients, while Global Reach Partners will be fully dedicated to corporate clients.

Regulated By: 

Financial Conduct Authority (UK)

Awards: 

Global Reach Partners 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:

Best Small Companies to Work For 2014 – The Sunday Times

Sunday Times Profit Fast Track 100 (2012)

Conclusion: 

Global Reach Partners is a highly reliable money transfer / FX company. It has the same characteristics as the majority of other companies we have reviewed, but they boast higher trading volume and have been in the businesses for long than almost anyone.

GRP is growing at a staggering pace, and once they become a tad more internationalised, opening offices abroad and being approved by several more regulatory authorities (most importantly, in the USA), they would definitely be considered as one of the market leaders. Until then, they are just a very reliable UK-centric currency firm.

Client Feedback

Research:

With over 500 reviews on Global Reach Partners via TrustPilot (average score 9.4 / 10), in addition to 18 Facebook reviews (4.4 / 5 stars), we definitely have enough data to form a positive opinion about the quality of their services.

Conclusion:

It is crystal clear that Global Reach Partners provides an excellent service to its clients. We cannot think otherwise, considering about 98% of these reviews were highly positive.

Complaints are few, and among them you can find 2 very unfortunate incidents (of trades being missed), and about 8 clients complaining about the sign up process (which is lengthy because regulatory requirements and AML, nothing GRP could do about it). Although the incidents that were described are bothering to read, we can understand how human errors can take place when dealing with tens of thousands of clients  – that’s unavoidable.

Exchange Rate & Fees

Research:

Fees: Global Reach Partners doesn’t specifically mention anything about wire fees, but they’re implying that there’s a varying fixed cost. From their Q&A:

New and exclusive to MoneyTransferComparison – Use our “Free Quote” link to get fees waived.

Exchange Rates: We anticipate Global Reach Partners to have great exchange rates, and some of their clients do attest to that in their reviews, but there isn’t enough information for us to determine how good these exchange rates are. With other companies like World First you have a lot more client reviews which specifically mention how they compared against other payment providers, and with Global Reach Partners we could not find anything.

Limits: The minimum transfer amount is £1,000 which is pretty standard to the industry (some companies like Moneycorp or Currencies Direct have lower minimums, though).

You can, however, transfer £250 if you need to transfer it regularly.

Conclusion:

There are unknown fixed fees involved with working with Global Reach Partners which is something we do not appreciate, but luckily for our readers – you won’t have to bear any.

It is difficult to comment on the exchange rates as they are not public, and we don’t have enough testimony of how these rates compare with banks and other fx companies, but the firm would have not been in the business for this long without having better-than-bank rates, for certain.

Global Reach & Service

Research:

• Dedicated Dealer: Yes.
• Offices: UK, only
• Ways to approach: Int. Phone Call, Email, Form, or Online System.
• Translations: None.
• Accepts clients: Globally besides USA.
• Currencies Handled: 141
• Client reviews: Very content.

Conclusion:

Global Reach Partners is a service oriented firm which is glorified by 98% of the clients who left reviews about it online. It boasts a highly personalised service and highlight the fact they are happy to offer bespoke solutions to any inquiry.

They are also very international in terms of currency offering. Together with rival firm World First, Global Reach Partners have one of the most impressive offerings of more than 140 currencies.

Global Reach Partner’s downside is the lack of offices and local bank settlements across the globe. That means transfers are likely to be slower and more expensive for clients outside the UK.

Additional Functionalities

Personal & Business hedging:

• Vanilla Forward.
• Window Forward Extra.
• Protected.
• Participating Forward.
• Risk Reversal.

Additional: Regular Transfers.

Global Reach Partners excel in this particular aspect of FX options. Since they deal mainly with corporate clients, they have bothered creating forms of FX options which are unavailable anywhere else like the Window Forward Extra.

App:

An app is unavailable. The firm is more geared towards high-value clients that aren’t looking for mobile currency applications.

Conclusion:

Global Reach Partners offer a wider variety of forex options than the vast majority of its competitors. This is a strong selling point for experts, treasury managers, and traders who look for an upside on some of their deals.