Travel FX teams up with Visa to launch Travel FX GO

Travel FX, the London travel money company, is working with Visa, a world leader in digital payments, to build Travel FX GO: a planned digital wallet, mobile app and multi-currency travel card.

Anyone who has been abroad knows the routine. You buy your euros before you fly. You pay on a card while you are there, at a different rate. Then you change whatever is left back when you get home. Three transactions, three providers, and no single place that shows what the trip actually cost you.

Travel FX GO is aimed at that. The idea is one balance a customer can hold in several currencies, move between them and spend from, rather than a different product at each stage of a trip.

Travel FX has been selling travel money online since 2009. It buys currency at wholesale rates and takes a margin rather than charging a commission, and posts the notes out to customers across the United Kingdom. Seventeen years on it runs from a single office in London, offers more than 60 currencies and has served over 600,000 customers.

That is a business built almost entirely on cash ordered before departure. Travel FX GO would take the same pricing approach and apply it to money held and spent digitally.

The cash side is not going anywhere. Notes still get ordered and posted, and for plenty of travellers that is still how a holiday starts. What has been missing is anything that carries on once the envelope has arrived.

It would also change when the relationship happens. A currency order ends at the doormat. A balance on a card runs the length of the holiday, and for a company whose customers have always ordered, travelled and gone quiet, that is the more interesting part of the move.

“We’re proud to be working with Visa as we bring Travel FX GO to our customers,” said Graham Tennant, Director at Travel FX. “This is a significant step in our mission to make international money management simpler and fairer for everyone.”

“Today’s travellers expect greater flexibility and control over how they manage their money abroad,” said Rob Cameron, Group Country Manager, UK & Ireland, Visa. “By working with Travel FX on the development of Travel FX GO, we’re helping to bring more choice and convenience to consumers, supported by the security, reliability and global acceptance of the Visa network.”

Travel FX GO is still in development and remains subject to the relevant regulatory and partner approvals. It is planned for customers in the United Kingdom. What the product will include, and when any part of it reaches customers, has not been announced. Travel FX will share more as development progresses.

Customers can register their interest at https://www.travelfx.co.uk/go

About Travel FX

Travel FX is a travel money company based in London. It has traded since 2009, buying currency at wholesale rates and taking a margin rather than charging a commission, and delivers currency to customers across the United Kingdom. It offers more than 60 currencies, has served over 600,000 customers and has processed more than £1.6bn. More at https://www.travelfx.co.uk