Business Development & Implementation Director writes article for Travel Bulletin
30th January 2009 03:15pm
Ensuring profitability from travel money and foreign exchange
Jon Rankin, Business Development and Implementation Director, from foreign exchange expert SCL outlines the key considerations for travel agents:
During these recessive economic times travel agents should consider all possible methods of increasing their income. Providing a foreign exchange and travel money service can be a potentially lucrative revenue stream, but only if the provision is managed and organised effectively to ensure maximum profitability, efficiency and regulatory compliance. This is best achieved with some kind of Point of Sale (POS) system.
A principle challenge for agents is reducing the level of manual interaction with their POS system, as transactions take place or new rates or inventory is inputted. Automation in these areas drives profitability for the agent across the whole lifecycle of the products, whether it is travellers' cheques, foreign exchange, or stored-value travel card transactions.
Our own POS system, UltraPoS, has been designed to fully automate all processes during the sale and management of travel money and traveller cheque inventory. It removes the potential for costly human error in such tasks as the entering of exchange rates onto the rate board, and the submission of sales data to key suppliers - such as reporting the sale of travellers cheques.
A further significant issue is ensuring compliance with anti-money laundering regulations. This can best be achieved through internal policies and procedures and effective staff training. The best POS systems can also aid these measures by enforcing the collection of customer data at specific transactional stages. Some also include automated checking of customer names against Governmental lists of prohibited individuals.
UltraPoS delivers this functionality, forcing the input of crucial Know Your Customer data at every transactional stage, to effortlessly comply with Anti-Money Laundering regulations. Amongst others, it is certified by FINTRAC, Canada's financial intelligence unit, for the automated reporting of large cash transactions on behalf of Custom House Global Foreign Exchange, in Canada. UltraPoS produces and transmits a daily file, direct to FINTRAC's systems in Canada, containing details of prescribed financial transactions and other information relevant to money laundering and terrorist activities.
Foreign currency is very much a commodity product - an agent needs to have the right stock at the right price to close a sale. This necessitates keeping a close watch on the stock in the system, and the ability to easily alter pricing to clinch a sale. Any POS system must be easy and intuitive for staff to use, and must not add unnecessary complexity. Agents should seek a system that is scalable enough to faultlessly manage and control a large range of stock, and is flexible enough to respond to market changes quickly.
When considering a currency supplier, as well as ensuring competitive pricing deals, agents should get an understanding of how a prospective supplier can integrate with their POS system's software, to best automate stock replenishment and download daily exchange rates. UltraPoS is compatible with all technical platforms, delivery channels or travellers cheque issuers, it also supports multiple trading methods from point-of-sale to mail order, all from the same installation.