Spotlight Session: John Hall, Frank Exchange

Transparency, Service and the Right Foundations for International Payments

In this edition of Around the Chair Spotlight Sessions, Jonathan Barnes, Vice Chair of the CORE International Ecosystem, speaks with John Hall, founder of Frank Exchange, about international payments, transparency and the importance of having the right support around a business as it grows internationally.

With a career spanning financial services, insurance and foreign exchange, John has spent decades helping businesses move money internationally. Frank Exchange was founded on a simple belief: customers should be able to see exactly what they are paying, understand how their payments move, and speak to a real person when they need support.

“The main thing is transparency.”

John Hall, Founder, Frank Exchange

From Textiles to Financial Services

Jonathan: John, tell us a little about yourself and your background.

John: “In my younger years I was dyslexic, very dyslexic. So, it took me a while to get going. At school I didn’t really achieve much because of that.

“I left school and joined the family textile business from 1978 to 1984. We were the largest sock manufacturer in Europe, certainly. I always thought I’d spend the rest of my life working there, but that wasn’t to be.”

John began his career in the family textile business, which had grown into a substantial operation with five factories and 50 shareholders. As the business developed, it became clear that the structure of the company offered limited scope for him to progress.

John: “The company got so big that, I mean, we weren’t a PLC, but we had 50 different shareholders and five factories and there was a structure and it was obvious that I wasn’t going to go anywhere within that structure.”

Encouraged by his older brother, John changed direction and entered insurance and investment. He became part of a business that grew to eight partners and became Commercial Union’s largest provider of premium income worldwide.

After the business was sold, John moved to Royal Insurance, before an unexpected approach from a headhunter led to the next major chapter of his career.

Building Experience in Foreign Exchange

Jonathan: You mentioned you moved on to Thomas Cook, was that in the travel department?

John: “There are two parts of Thomas Cook. There’s the holiday company and there’s Thomas Cook Financial Services.

“I got a letter from a headhunter. I picked it up one day and read it and thought, I’ll give this guy a ring. So I gave him a ring and it turned out to be an opportunity to join a company called Commercial Foreign Exchange, which was part of Thomas Cook Financial Services.”

Commercial Foreign Exchange helped businesses move money internationally, building on Thomas Cook’s longstanding experience in currency, bureaux de change and travellers’ cheques. During John’s time there, the division experienced significant growth.

John: “By the time Thomas Cook Financial Services was sold to Travelex, in I think 2002, Commercial Foreign Exchange were making 55% plus of Thomas Cook Group’s profits.”

The business was also an early innovator in online foreign exchange. Its internet based system allowed customers to buy and sell currency, set up payments and send money internationally online, long before this became the standard expectation.

John: “It was a forerunner and Thomas Cook were the forerunners in that internet based system.”

John stayed with Travelex until 2010. He then set up a UK sales operation for a Canadian foreign exchange company before founding Frank Exchange in 2012.

Transparency at the Centre of Frank Exchange

Jonathan: For someone hearing about Frank Exchange for the first time, how would you describe what you do and the type of support you provide to clients?

John: “We provide foreign exchange and international payment and receipt services for companies, individuals who need to pay and receive currency from around the world.”

When John founded Frank Exchange, he wanted to create a business that addressed a major concern he had seen throughout his career: a lack of transparency around foreign exchange charges.

John: “One of the things that was really important to me was transparency, because I believe that if the customers could see all of the information, including the markup, before they ordered, it would mean they would trust us more.”

Frank Exchange partnered with Currencycloud, now a Visa solution, to provide clients with access to an online platform for international payments and currency exchange. Clients can see the live interbank rate, the wholesale rate and their customer rate on each transaction.

John: “They showed the live interbank market rate, the wholesale rate, which is the rate we get the currency at, and then the customer rate on every transaction.”

The business does not handle client money directly. Instead, clients use the secure platform to complete their transactions and send payments to the relevant destination.

Alongside transparency, Frank Exchange places a strong focus on personal service, helping customers navigate a process that can often feel complex and impersonal.

Supporting Businesses Across Sectors

Jonathan: What type of businesses do you typically work with best?

John: “We do analyse our customer base and their profile. Interestingly enough, we’ve not got two customers in the same sector other than rock crushing machinery.”

Frank Exchange works with businesses across a broad range of sectors, including companies with customers, suppliers or operations in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, North America and beyond.

For John, the key question is straightforward.

John: “Do you need to pay and receive in currency? Then let us have a look at it and see what you’re doing, what you’re paying in the markup, because a lot of people aren’t aware of that, and see how we can help you.”

The company’s ideal client is typically an established business with around 15 to 20 employees and annual turnover between £5 million and £10 million. However, its services can support organisations of different sizes, provided they have a genuine need to send or receive money internationally.

More Choice in International Payments

Jonathan: What are some of the most common mistakes or challenges you see businesses facing in your area of expertise?

John: “It’s less about people making explicit mistakes and much more about awareness and the legacy language of banking.”

For many years, businesses had limited options for international payments. A priority payment sent through SWIFT was often viewed as the standard route, with little awareness that other methods might be quicker, more cost effective or better suited to the transaction.

John: “There’s now far more payment methods and receipt methods available. And it may be that the SWIFT payment is not the best way for a customer to transact.”

Through Currencycloud’s Visa solution, Frank Exchange can access local and real time payment networks in markets around the world. This includes ACH and Fedwire in the United States, EFT in Canada and other local payment methods internationally.

Using a local payment route can reduce costs and speed up the payment process, particularly where the recipient’s bank has limited access to the SWIFT network.

John: “We can access the local payment network, which means it’s like them paying the supplier up the road and it speeds up and reduces costs.”

For growing businesses, the opportunity is not simply to send money abroad, but to understand the best route for each transaction.

Managing Compliance and Payment Delays

Jonathan: When businesses start scaling internationally, how does your role become more important?

John: “One is making sure that they understand the process, especially today, because if you do enough international payments, something will go wrong, something will happen. And it’s normally around compliance these days.”

International payments often pass through several stages. The sending bank, intermediary banks and receiving bank may all carry out automated compliance checks. If a payment reference or piece of information triggers a query, the payment can be paused while further documentation is requested.

John believes that explaining this process in advance helps clients remain calm and respond appropriately if a payment is delayed.

John: “It’s about educating people to understand the processes so they don’t get concerned. And then choosing the right payment method, because the priority payments, we can track them like you would track a parcel.”

Frank Exchange can monitor the progress of priority payments, including when a payment was set up, released by the bank, passed through an intermediary institution and received by the end bank. It can also identify fees deducted during the process and help determine where a payment has become delayed.

John: “If the payment gets stuck, we can see where it’s stuck and what we need to do to get it moving and get it done.”

This can be especially important where goods are held at a port awaiting payment, or where a delayed international transfer could lead to additional fees, missed shipping deadlines or disruption to payroll.

Personal Service When It Matters

Jonathan: As you’re aware, there are many firms operating in your sector. What would you say makes your approach different?

John: “So first is transparency. So we show our markup. That’s the commission that’s taken. Everybody in foreign exchange takes a markup.”

Foreign exchange providers make their margin through the difference between the live interbank rate and the customer rate. For John, the difference is ensuring clients can see this clearly, rather than being left unsure about the cost of each transaction.

John: “If we say it’s going to be X, it’ll be X, and you’ll see it every time, which means we don’t mess around with it.”

The second priority is service. Frank Exchange gives clients access to real people who can help with practical payment queries, from bank details and IBANs to more complex compliance requests.

John: “Georgia Todd, our Head of Customer Service, she fields calls directly from our customers. If we’re not available, we’ll ring back within the hour and we talk to people and deal with their queries.”

Where an issue cannot be resolved immediately, the team works with its banking providers, manages the process and follows up to help ensure the payment can progress as quickly as possible.

John: “It’s about service. It’s about being real for people and answering the phone.”

Ultimately, John’s motivation comes down to helping clients through the moments when international payments become stressful.

John: “When the client gets an issue and you see they’re desperate, sometimes when this money has to go, where is it? What’s happened to it?”

A payment may be delayed by a compliance check, goods may be waiting at a dock, a supplier may need to be paid, or payroll may depend on funds arriving on time. In these moments, clients need someone who understands the process, can remain calm and knows how to identify the next action.

John: “It’s about keeping calm, dealing with the issues and solving the problems for the customers.”

For John, helping to resolve these issues and seeing the relief it brings clients is one of the most rewarding parts of the job.

The Value of Joined-Up Professional Advice

Jonathan: How important do you see joined up advisory support when businesses are growing?

John: “Phenomenally important. When I think back to when I set this business up back in 2012, I thought I knew a lot. In actual fact, I didn’t know much.”

John has experienced first hand how difficult it can be for business owners to navigate advice from separate specialists. An accountant, bank manager, lawyer and technology provider may each offer guidance in isolation, but without coordination it can be difficult to know which actions are right for the wider business.

John: “Because the two aren’t connected, they’re not giving advice that joins up. And that means people can waste a lot of time going down the wrong avenues or exploring the wrong things.”

This becomes even more important when businesses expand overseas. A company may have early success in a new market and decide to establish a local office, only to discover later that the legal, financial, employment and operational foundations were not properly considered.

John: “We’ve seen it, pumping hundreds of thousands of pounds into a business because it wasn’t thought through and set up properly in the first place.”

For John, the value of the Director’s Chair is the ability to bring experienced advisers together around the business, starting with the end goal and working backwards to identify what needs to be in place.

Jonathan: I’m assuming that’s one of the reasons why the Director’s Chair appeals to you.

John: “Yes, absolutely. This is one of the things that we’ve always done here, because we always believe that everything should be done for the benefit of the customer. The customer should be at the centre of everything that we do.”

John believes the Director’s Chair stands apart because it brings together people who have practical experience of building and expanding businesses themselves, alongside specialists who understand the individual areas that need attention.

John: “The first thing that’s different is there’s people sat in the chairs who have done it themselves. That is vital.”

This combination of lived experience and specialist expertise creates more connected advice, helping businesses make decisions with the customer’s needs, long term ambitions and practical foundations firmly in mind.

One Piece of Advice for Growing Businesses

Jonathan: If you could give one piece of advice to business leaders currently trying to scale or grow, what would it be?

John: “Quite simply, take advice, make sure the advice is concurrent and joined up from different areas that you need it, get a good understanding of what you want to do, and make sure it’s set up properly legally right from day one and the bases are covered.”

John’s advice is clear: do not try to solve every challenge alone, particularly when entering new markets or building for growth.

A successful business in one country does not automatically have the right structure to succeed elsewhere. International expansion can involve complex decisions around legal entities, employment, tax, banking, payments, compliance and local operations.

The most effective approach is to define the destination first, then work backwards with the right specialists to establish what needs to happen at each stage. Joined up advice can prevent costly mistakes, save valuable time and ensure the business is built on solid foundations from day one.

Recharging Through Family, Walking and Rugby

Jonathan: Outside of work, what keeps you motivated and passionate about what you do?

John: “I do a lot of fell walking. In the Lake District, you’ll find me somewhere up on top of a ridge, or on top of the hills somewhere at the weekend.”

Away from the business, John enjoys spending time outdoors, particularly fell walking in the Lake District. He also values time with his three grown up children and three grandchildren, including his youngest grandchild who lives nearby.

John is also a dedicated rugby union fan and a season ticket holder at Leicester Tigers. His plans often combine his love of the sport with getting outdoors, including a planned trip to Pau to walk in the Pyrenees and watch rugby.

Connect with Frank Exchange

Frank Exchange provides transparent foreign exchange and international payment services for businesses and individuals sending or receiving money worldwide. Through access to international and local payment methods, clear pricing and personal support, John and the team help clients manage cross border payments with greater confidence.

As part of the Director’s Chair, Frank Exchange contributes specialist foreign exchange expertise to a wider ecosystem of trusted advisers, working collaboratively to help businesses grow, expand and operate internationally.