Spot Foreign Exchange

A Spot Foreign Exchange (FX) transaction is an agreement between Customer Treasury Services and a customer to buy one currency and sell another currency at an agreed price called the spot foreign exchange rate. The standard settlement date is within two business days from the date of booking (known as T + 2).

The majority of standard Foreign Exchange payments for all types of customer 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 are booked with Customer Treasury Services in order to have a Dealer rate* applied. This should be done via your Primary Relationship Manager if you have not already 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.

*Should you decide to cancel a Dealer rate that has been booked either by or for you (for example, in the event that the underlying transaction will not be completed), you will transact an equal and opposite transaction in order to reverse the agreed exchange. It is likely that this will not be at the same exchange rate as your original booked rate, and therefore a break cost or break gain will result.  Break costs can be significant depending on market volatility and therefore you should not book a Dealer Rate unless you are committed to the underlying transaction.

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