How interest rate efficient are you?

[jack52]

Something that has frustrated me for a while is getting optimal interest rates on idle cash balances.

It is something I am sure large corporates do well but as a small business its very frustrating to see 'free money' lost because I have the cash in the wrong place or have negative of one currency but positive of a another currency so paying (usually very high) interest on one and receiving (usually very small) amount in the other.

For my situation:
- regularly holding balances in GBP, USD, EUR
- bank interest rates are horrible
- bank currency conversion rates are horrible
- non-bank providers have credit risk and rates are worse than government bonds
- i do use government bonds / money market funds for longer term balances
- i do use non-banks for currency conversions but it is a lot of effort to transfer to someone else, do a currency conversion, transfer back.

Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[John Martin]

Have you had a look at Wise?

You can hold accounts in multiple currencies and easily convert from one to another at reasonable fees. You can even set up automatic transfers should an exchange rate suddenly switch in your favour.

They also have a facility for you to invest your funds but still have easy access to them if you need them.

Well worth a look.

 

[jack52]

Have you had a look at Wise?

You can hold accounts in multiple currencies and easily convert from one to another at reasonable fees. You can even set up automatic transfers should an exchange rate suddenly switch in your favour.

They also have a facility for you to invest your funds but still have easy access to them if you need them.

Well worth a look.

do you get a relationship manager? I would prefer to work with someone who understands the business, knows that we are compliant with uk and local laws and regulations and so doesn't randomly block payments which used to be a big issue until building a better relationship with our current provider.

 

[John Martin]

do you get a relationship manager? I would prefer to work with someone who understands the business, knows that we are compliant with uk and local laws and regulations and so doesn't randomly block payments which used to be a big issue until building a better relationship with our current provider.

I've never had any real problems with them, but I guess it depends on a number of factors, such as how large the payments are, what sector you work in, which countries you deal with, etc, etc.

I suppose you could test them out with smaller payments to start with and see how things go. It's always good to have a number of options in case one of them causes issues on a particular payment.