Expansion brings sterling year for Moneycorp
FAST growing foreign exchange firm Moneycorp grew gross profits by nearly 50 per cent last year – underscoring its ambitious plans to crack high street banks’ dominance of the overseas payments market.
The Knightsbridge-based firm, which is controlled by a former investment vehicle of RBS, said gross profit rose to £97.2m from £65.2m in 2012 after a surge in revenues at its retail and international payments.
“The international payments market is poorly served by the high street banks, and yet they still retain around 80 per cent of the market in the UK”, Moneycorp chief executive Mark Horgan said.
“Our pricing, systems, innovative products and expert service give us a competitive edge over the high street banks, and in 2014 we’ll be competing aggressively to grow our share of this market.”
Airport travellers are accustomed to seeing Moneycorp shops at airports through its retail business.
The firm went head to head with rival Travelex at Heathrow airport for the first time last year while Moneycorp won exclusive rights to offer foreign exchange bureaus at Stansted airport.
Overall its retail business, which opened 39 new stores in total, grew revenue by 58 per cent.
Its larger international payments business – which makes up about 90 per cent of the firm’s income – saw growth of 13 per cent as revenues reached £31.3m. It offers services to importers and exporters as well as traditional overseas money transfers.
The company’s explosive growth fed into a huge increase into the number of staff at the firm, with Moneycorp doubling headcount last year to take on about 350 people – more than one new employee every working day.