Rates and Currency Tools

We refer to exchange rates all the time, but what we are really talking about is the price. Moreover, for property buyers this is the price of perhaps the most expensive item you will ever buy, apart from your own home. If you are planning on making a large international payment, therefore, staying up to date on, and even in control of, exchange rates will both give peace of mind and potentially save you lots of money too.

For relocators too, whether buying a home or not, exchange rates are your income. While the UK Government guarantees retirement pensions that rise with inflation, those gains can be won or lost over the course of a day by the volatility of the currency markets. The good news is that there is no reason to let that happen. Just speak to your trader at Smart Currency exchange to learn how to protect your income abroad.

Smart Currency Exchange helps its clients to make the right choices with their international transactions with a range of online tools and content. We have tools to keep you informed, wherever you are and whenever you need to know rates. We have alerts to tell you if a price is moving and you need to act fast. We have an online payment system to allow you to make trades at extended hours.

Perhaps best of all, we have the tools to enable you to stay in control of your budget and mitigate the risks of exchange rates – prices – moving away from you.

Keeping you informed

Here’s a brief rundown of the tools we offer to keep our clients informed throughout all stages of the currency exchange process:

Live rates

On our Live Rates page you will see how the pound, and any other major currency, is performing. You can view them in a variety of formats and over any time frame from 12 hours to 10 years. All the major currency pairs are shown at the interbank exchange rates, the rates at which the banks trade currency with each other. The rates on this page are updated by the minute, and are not available to the general public. If you view them alongside our Daily Market Updates and speak to your own dedicated trader, you will soon get a feel for how and why currencies move.

Currencies

Wherever you wish to buy a home, or emigrate, we want to help you with your international payments. Smart is able to offer transfers into over 35 currencies including the euro, US dollar, Australian dollar, Thai baht and many, many more.

You can see a full list of the currencies available when trading with Smart here.

Mobile app

Live Rates are available as a free app too, direct to your mobile phone.

Download the Smart app to see how exchange are faring wherever you are and at any time of the day or night. You can set a “rate alert”, so that you receive a message if that exchange rate is reached. That could be immensely useful, for example, if you are about to make a transaction abroad that is dependent on the pound reaching (or not reaching) a certain level. It means you don’t need to constantly check the rates yourself – let us do that for you.

Currency risk tools

With the relative value of currencies changing by the minute, budgeting becomes impossible unless you lock in a rate. Smart has a range of tools to enable you to do this. The most popular is the Forward Contract. If, for example, you are buying a home in Spain and need to pay a 10 per cent deposit, then the rest of the purchase price weeks or months later, how can you be sure you will still be able to afford it if rates change? Remember, a 1 per cent change in exchange rate could make a €150,000 home at least £1,000 more expense – suppose the rate changes by 5 per cent? A Forward Contract will lock in the rate for up to a year, on payment of a deposit.

This is just one of many tools at your disposal. Your trader will discuss which will be the best for you.

Online payments

You don’t have to speak to a currency trader if it’s inconvenient. Many of our services are available online, including Forward Contracts and Spot Contracts. If you are making lots of smaller payments, or need to set up a Regular Payments Plan, you can manage all that via Smart’s Online Payments website. It allows you to manage your account 24/7, while making trades between 8am and 6pm

Local offices

We facilitate quick, easy and cost-effective currency transfers all over the world. To make it easier to cater to the needs of our clients, we have opened further offices in Vilamoura in Portugal and on the Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol in Spain.