Make international payments and transfers easy for your business as the world reopens
From start ups to global brands, 2022 is the year of international growth
New Year is always an opportunity to look forward, to make plans, to seize opportunity. This year, after an unprecedented global pause in proceedings and a protracted Brexit decoupling, we’re feeling it in spades.
From one-man band entrepreneurs to global brand CFOs, business leaders are tired of watching potential pass them by while caught in the twin nets of Brexit and Covid. This, it seems, will be the year for action.
“Confidence is growing that we’re finally emerging from the pandemic and we’re beginning to have greater clarity on what trade looks like for UK businesses post Brexit,” says Reece Dye, head of corporate clients for Clear Currency. “Businesses that have been holding off are starting to shake themselves out of survival mode.”
In fact, data from the EU Business School, among others, suggests that even at the height of uncertainty in 2021, 45 per cent of CFOs were either continuing with development plans or had paused them for less than a year in response to the pandemic. Almost one in ten reported imminent plans to expand operations.
Meanwhile, the movement of goods and services between the UK and EU seems to be returning to pre- Brexit transition levels, with imports and exports into and out of the UK during the second and third quarters of 2021 surprisingly close to those reported 12 months earlier.
At the same time, for the entrepreneurs who spent lockdown planning their next new venture, the UK - with an economy famously built on the backs of small business and the third largest number of new businesses in the world - remains a start-up powerhouse thanks in no small part to low business costs, particularly taxes.
With Europe still very much on the doorstep, Sterling’s rally against the euro over the last year has made importing goods and services from our nearest neighbours cheaper too - whatever the scale, age or prominence of your business.
Discover: How Clear Currency can support your international trade ambitions
The world of work has undoubtedly changed though. ‘The Great Digital Shift’ - in business and life - has blown the global labour market into a new normal.
A range of surveys suggest the EU workforce in particular is pursuing new skills and opportunities overseas while the nomadic/working from anywhere approach has become legitimate and mainstream - complete with two year’s worth of data that has finally debunked long-held myths around the performance of remote workers.
There’s no doubt that a diverse workforce has long been recognised as a huge business advantage, from the benefits of multilingualism and knowledge of a wide variety of cultures when dealing with new and existing clients, to the import of new ideas on productivity.
Now though, the challenges that used to come with that diversity, including relocation and visa issues, not to mention significant travel costs, are fading fast as staff increasingly pick their own working location and digital collaboration reduces the need for international business travel with its high time, monetary and environmental impact.
It’s little surprise then, that more than 80 per cent of respondents to the EU Business School’s recent Globalization Partners/CFO Research survey said they thought a global, remote workforce was not only the right solution for the locked down world during the pandemic, but for life after the pandemic finally recedes into the background.
“But even in this brave new world, profit margins must still be protected and consistency sought,” adds Dye. “Now is no time for a business to be vulnerable to market volatility when it comes to currency,” he warns.
Currency exchange guidance to suit your business
Whether paying staff salaries across a familiar border or paying for goods on the far side of the world, Clear Currency’s aim is to help businesses navigate the world of international trade and payments - from dynamic start-ups to constantly evolving global heavyweights.
Clear Currency works with thousands of businesses on every scale, providing currency expertise and foreign exchange guidance at a low cost with no nasty fee surprises, and full transparency over the entire process.
Its clients benefit from a quick and easy process with instant rates and same-day transfers online through Clear Currency’s 24/7 platform or over the phone with their dedicated currency specialist - on hand to provide currency hedging solutions including spot, forward, limit orders and stop losses, in 35 currencies across more than 130 countries.
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