Services for Small and Medium sized Enterprises

We know that for many companies, the foreign exchange market is a daunting one. We also know that banks are capable of charging excessive fees to people unfamiliar with it.

We understand this and have designed our services to help SMEs negotiate the market’s many minefields. We can help you to ensure that you don’t pay too much or receive too little. We look after your foreign currency issues and leave you free to do what you do best – running your business.

We take back from the banks and return to the firms earning the money in the first place.

We also help to identify opportunities to enhance your returns without increasing your exposure to foreign currencies.

We do this by:

  • Ensuring that bank exchange rates and fees are fair and reasonable.
  • Assisting with contract negotiations involving foreign currency payments and receipts.
  • Advising on protection against exchange rate movements and, if required,
  • Managing foreign currency payments, receipts and conversions on your behalf.

Typical client relationship

A typical client relationship works along the following lines:

  1. You will be assigned a client advisor. The advisor will review your existing contracts and commitments and discuss your sensitivity to movements in the exchange rate.
  2. The advisor will prepare alternative protection strategies and assist you to choose the strategy of greatest advantage to your business.
  3. We will negotiate transaction facilities with at least two financial institutions on your behalf. A foundational feature of our service is acquiring competitive pricing for the protection strategies chosen by you.
  4. We will then, if you require, obtain quotes and execute the strategy.
  5. You will have on-going access to the client advisor. You will also have access to the operations centre for one-off transactions or operational issues - or simply to answer any niggling questions you may have about the currency markets.
  6. We will provide monthly reporting outlining the status of the protection strategy.

All these things distill down to our primary activities, which are summarised in the chart below:

Things that we don’t do

  • We don’t forecast exchange rates. Our protection strategies are based on your exchange rate exposures and your unique situation, not on whether we believe the exchange rate is rising or falling.
  • Unlike financial institutions, we don’t sell products. We are ambivalent as to which products are used for protecting against exchange rate movements. Sometimes the best protection results from natural offsets in payments and receipts that come at no cost.
  • We do not speculate on exchange rate movements on our own or your behalf.

Why use us

  • We are independent of all financial institutions.
  • We will talk your language. We translate bank language into English.
  • We identify and quantify hidden margins.
  • We choose the lowest cost provider of your needs among the financial institutions.
  • We don’t act as principal to any trade. We act as an intermediary between you and the financial institution. You therefore have no financial exposure to Applied Financial Diagnostics.
  • We do not take unilateral decisions. All decisions are made by you.
  • The pricing policy for our services is simple and transparent. It is not based on the number of transactions you do.

Opportunities

While we recognise that many companies find foreign exchange daunting, we believe not only that it need not be daunting, but that indeed it presents opportunities for increased profits without an increase in your exposure to foreign currency markets.

In the increasingly globalised world, the company that is comfortable with foreign exchange implications has the advantage.

We would like to assist you to achieve that comfort and realise that advantage.

Some examples of how we can help:

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