Andy Homer interviews Money Mover CEO Hamish Anderson
Posted on the 2nd November 2015 by Andy Homer in News
Andy Homer interviews Money Mover CEO Hamish Anderson, who talks about the money transfer marketplace.
What inspired you to form Money Mover?
The founders knew that SMEs were under-served and overcharged by banks across the board. Consumers benefit from special offers and competitive rates. Large corporations can use their size to leverage the best deal. SMEs are caught in the middle.
We saw an opportunity to offer SMEs something they couldn’t get elsewhere – a transparent, cost-effective service with consistent rates. We love cutting costs, but what really motivates us is using technology to improve the user experience. We understand how SMEs work, and the Money Mover platform reflects this.
What do you believe makes you stand out in an already crowded market?
Our focus on SMEs is unique. While our competitors may look similar, they lack the laser focus on this demanding sector. We are unique because our customers know exactly what exchange rate is being used, how much is being charged, and there is no peer-to-peer matching getting in the way.
It is this transparency combined with a feature-rich web application which makes Money Mover stand out.
"It is alarming that banks’ regard for SMEs is so meagre that
even internal transfers are a rip-off"
In your opinion why should an SME use Money Mover?
Our web application has been specifically designed for SMEs. Most of the other services out there are run for the convenience of the providers. We’ve approached international payments from the SME’s perspective and tried to address the problems they face. For example, we’ve made it easy to get real-time market quotes, create and download reports and track where a payment is at any stage of its lifecycle. We’ve also created a fully audited user and account structure which allows professional advisers to work with multiple businesses from a single profile. We’re updating our web application constantly to respond to feedback and requests from our customers. It really is a platform built for its users by its users.
While most of our customers use Money Mover to make payments to third parties, an increasing number use us to move funds between their currency bank accounts. This is because Money Mover is faster and less expensive than their banks, and we disclose our fees up front. It is alarming that banks’ regard for SMEs is so meagre that even internal transfers are a rip-off. To be blunt, any SME making currency payments and transfers, however infrequently, should be using Money Mover.
"The SME transfer market dwarves the consumer market by quite some
margin. We estimate that SMEs globally make USD $5.6 trillion of
international payments annually."
So far money transfer has been focused on consumers over small businesses. How big is this market?
The SME transfer market dwarves the consumer market by quite some margin. We estimate that SMEs globally make USD $5.6 trillion of international payments annually. Consumer money transfer grabs the headlines simply because consumer services tend to do so. Money Mover is used mainly by entrepreneurs, business owners and directors. This skews the perception of the SME market in general – and is possibly why they are so under-served by banks.
The service you offer is a threat to banks. How do you think established financial institutions will react in the long term?
Bank customers are no longer wedded to the traditional players and are open to fintech alternatives. However, the big financial behemoths still have size and inertia on their side. We talk of fintech disruption but, in relation to the sheer scale of the big banks, it is still just a ripple.
As a former banker, I can promise you that banks only perceive competition to come from the other glass towers in Canary Wharf, and not Old Street or Silicon Fen. Banks will need to react to specialist fintech players that are targeting specific business areas by attempting to become more agile, more transparent, and fairer to their customers.
FinTech is taking off around the world – what would you say are the challenges and opportunities for new players?
It’s tough for new challengers to compete on a level playing field, as the banks still control the financial infrastructure. This won’t change until this backbone is ‘unbundled’ in the same way that telecom networks have been.
The opportunities for new players lie where traditional players refuse to evolve. If you’ve ever been frustrated or overcharged by a financial services provider – and it’s not down to regulation – then it’s likely to be ripe for disruption.
Aside from money transfer, what area of FinTech has the greatest potential?
Money Mover is part of a bigger change in the way banking is done. Fintech is currently about cherry-picking single financial services and doing this one thing really well. But this means customers need to go to a number of separate providers in order to access the suite of services which they had previously received from a single provider. I predict that it will soon be possible to access the same suite of services much more conveniently. The best providers will group together or combine to form virtual banks, without the legacy issues that hold back our banking sector. This reformation of banking is where the potential really lies.
This interview appeared in a different form in BankNXT.
Other articles you might be interested in
- What’s keeping most small business owners up at night
- The world of FinTech; a layman’s review
- Legacy Systems and Legacy Thinking: Fintech and the reinvention of financial services