Spot Foreign Exchange

A Spot Foreign Exchange (FX) rate is an exchange rate that allows a customer to buy one currency and sell another currency at an agreed price. The rate is typically booked at the point of making a foreign exchange payment.

The majority of standard Foreign Exchange payments for all types of customers are processed using this method. Standard exchange rates applicable to Outgoing International payments up to £20,000 equivalent can be found here and Incoming International payments up to £20,000 equivalent can be found here.
Foreign Exchange payments in excess of £20,000 equivalent will require a negotiated rate to be applied and should be booked via your branch or Primary Relationship Manager if you have not completed registration documents to deal directly with Customer Treasury Services.

If you have regular Foreign Exchange exposures, and choose to process some or all of your payments using Spot FX, you should consider the potential risks associated with this method. While you may stand to benefit from any favourable movements in the Spot FX rate, you are unprotected in the event of an adverse movement and have no future cash flow certainty.  You will see more information about the potential benefits of Foreign Exchange Risk Management here.

Key features

• The exchange rate applied to your payment will be the prevailing rate on that date (as above, these rates will vary depending on the amount of the payment)
• Provides no protection against adverse exchange rate movements between invoice date and date of payment
• Does allow you to benefit from favourable exchange rate movements
• Available in all major currencies
• Cannot be used for cash (foreign currency note) transactions
• You will find details of our International payment fees here