Scan Magazine

By Signe Hansen

The Swedish currency exchange company FOREX has moved across the Channel and opened its first office in the UK. Scan Magazine went on a visit to see how the business has been welcomed.

With more than 100 branches spread throughout Scandinavia, FOREX has gone a long way since its humble beginning in 1927. Back then, the first exchange office was opened at Stockholm’s Central Station by the Swedish barber Gyllenspets as a response to his customers’ need to exchange money.

Today Forex has around 1,000 employees, a turnover of 42 billion Swedish kronor and has just opened its first office outside the North, more accurately in Baker Street, London.

Here a team of young and dedicated Scandinavians are ready to show Londoners why FOREX is so popular in Scandinavia. One of them is Swedish Oskar Svensson who is the country manager for the UK and Iceland. He believes UK customers deserve to experience the Scandinavian way of doing currency exchange. “The Scandinavian approach to customer service is very different from the English. In Oxford Street many of the exchange services are just a hole in the wall and that is not comfortable or safe for the customers,” he says, adding “We do not aim to make as much profit on the customers the one time they come in but aim to make them come back.” One of the reasons for customers to come back is that FOREX, contrary to many other exchange services, does not charge any fee for the exchange. But do people really use an exchange office more than once? Maybe not the tourists, but they are not the only potential clients in the UK, explains Svensson’s Danish Colleague, Branch Manager Per Middelboe.

“Many people exchange their money outside the UK because it is more expensive to do it here. We want to change that and thus aim for both the UK market and the tourist market. Many people also exchange in the airport before travelling, but they can save 10-15 per cent if they exchange with us instead, so everybody gains if they exchange at FOREX, before they leave,” he says.

This may sound almost too good to be true, but actually it is the other way round, says Svensson; it is the English competition that is too poor to be true. “In England people are used to paying a high spread. In Scandinavia there is no more than a couple of per cent difference between the buying and selling prices whereas in the UK it can reach as high as 20-30 per cent. In that way the competition in Scandinavia is fairer to the customers.”

But while competitors may have reason to worry, the outlook is bright for the two Scandinavians  and FOREX, which plans to open 6-8 branches in London before the Olympics in 2012.