Manage FX for Your Import and Export Business

An import and export business has money crossing currencies in both directions. You pay overseas suppliers in their currency for the goods you bring in, and you often invoice overseas customers in a currency that isn't sterling for what you send out. Every one of those flows carries exchange rate exposure: the rate at the point you agree a price and the rate when the money actually moves can be different, and that gap lands directly on your margin.

The way to handle it is to treat currency as something you manage, not something that just happens to you. On the import side, that means paying suppliers at a clear, competitive rate with no payment transfer fees, rather than a margin built into a business bank transfer. On the export side, it means paying attention to the currency you invoice in and the rate at which foreign-currency income converts back to pounds. And across both, it means using rate tools deliberately: fixing a rate for a payment you know is coming, or targeting a rate you're waiting for. We handle the payments and the conversions, and we give you a named account manager to talk the currency side through, so a good quarter isn't undone by a bad week on the exchange rate. How your specific inbound and outbound flows are set up is worth a conversation, since no two trading businesses look quite the same.

This is for UK businesses that trade across borders in both directions, or heavily in one. A homeware brand importing finished goods from manufacturers in China and Vietnam in US dollars, then wholesaling some of it to buyers in Europe who pay in euros. A machinery firm exporting equipment to customers across the EU, invoicing in euros, while sourcing components from suppliers who bill in dollars. A specialty food importer bringing product in from several countries and selling on to distributors abroad. A manufacturer buying raw materials on one currency and selling finished stock on another.

What ties them together is exposure on both sides of the ledger, which is both a risk and, handled well, an opportunity to net one flow against the other. If your business is mostly one-directional, the neighbouring pages go deeper on each side: international supplier payments for the buying, and currency risk management for the tools that protect your margins whichever way the money's moving. Both sit with the rest of the range on our business FX hub. For the situational side, how to spot and plan around that risk rather than the mechanics, see our guide to managing currency risk on import/export business.