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Real-time exchange rates and transparent fees help our client workingHouse UG to easily manage international transactions in multiple currencies.

Since 2013, Workinghouse UG has been developing and importing goods from Asia to resell them to consumers in Europe. These purchases are mainly made in USD or local currencies, while sales in Europe are mostly generated in EUR. In this interview, Workinghouse UG's CEO Eckart Schenck discusses the advantages iBanFirst has been able to offer his business.

What problems do you encounter as a German trading company that sources products abroad?
As the managing director of Workinghouse UG, I'm mainly based in Taiwan, however my company is located in Germany, so I manage the entire business from abroad. This means that I need to be able to efficiently run my business online, which is not always easy.

In fact, it was a big problem for us to transfer exact amounts, VAT-included, in foreign currencies like the British Pound, the Polish Złoty or the Czech Koruna.

On the procurement side, we source our products mainly from China and Taiwan, so remittances in multiple currencies are an integral part of our daily operations. Processing transactions with our regular bank required a  lot of paperwork and it was impossible to keep track of real-time exchange rates. In the end, we could never be sure of the exact amount that would actually arrive in our trade partners accounts. It's especially important when transferring sales taxes to know the exact amount in the recipient's currency.

Before using iBanFirst, we used other platforms and payment service providers but they only gave us limited insight into the fees applied to international payments. We never new exactly how much the recipient was ultimately receiving.

Another problem we had was transaction costs. Many banks charge very high international transfer fees. On top of that, there are often unfavorable exchange rates. For larger transfers, this quickly amounts to a considerable sum.

How does iBanFirst meet your needs?
The transparency and speed of execution that iBanFirst offers for international transactions helps us a lot. We mainly use spot transactions, which we directly execute on the platform in just a few clicks. Fees are transparent, and tracking capabilities offered by the Payment Tracker feature enable us to follow payments and confirm that the correct amounts reach our recipients. We constantly keep track of the status of our payments. Another positive side effect is that by informing our suppliers of when the transfer is made and how they can track it themselves, we build trust and strengthen our business relationship.

iBanFirst has helped us eliminate uncertainties and we can quickly process everything via the platform without drowning in paperwork. This saves us valuable time and makes our operations abroad much easier.

Last but not least, iBanFirst's real-time exchange rates are always very competitive and are displayed before a transaction is completed, so there are no unpleasant surprises.

From your point of view, what are the biggest advantages of iBanFirst?
Undoubtedly: convenience, transparency as well as cost and time savings. Overall, with iBanFirst we have one thing less to worry about. When everything is working properly, all I have to do is make the payment and I can check that task off in my head. I don't have to worry about when the transfer will arrive and what the fees will be. I can see all that directly on the platform. Ultimately, this is the biggest advantage for us.

Even though I was hesitant to switch at first, it was worth it because the alternatives involved a lot of paperwork and much less transparency. We now have one less problem.