Xendpay review: What you should know before you sign up

Xendpay is a cheap online platform for international money transfers, despite being a little simplistic.

Xendpay was founded on a belief that international payments could be a medium for social change. It was the first service to bring the “pay what you want” concept to currency exchange. This initiative was championed by the company’s founders, who themselves had benefited from immigrating to the United Kingdom at a young age.

As the online remittance platform of an already established foreign exchange dealer, Xendpay uses its parent’s banking infrastructure to provide low cost services to those who need them. The result is a service that targets the residents of the UK and Europe, sending money home to friends and family abroad.

The motives behind Xendpay’s service are obviously well intentioned, but does its business model affect the quality of service delivered? To learn more about their capability and to see if their service is right for you, read on for my in-depth review of Xendpay.

 

1. Company history and founding story
2. Supported currencies
3. Exchange rates and fees
4. Transfer speed
5. Key features
6. Customer service
7. Security and regulation
8. Reputation
9. User experience
10. Conclusion and final thoughts

1. Company history and founding story

Xendpay was established in 2011, as an off-shoot of an existing foreign exchange business, RationalFX (review). Xendpay was the company’s attempt to develop an online platform specifically for low and medium-value transfers. It brought to the market the social idea of paying what you want for using the service, which garnered a lot of press coverage at the time.

RationalFX itself was founded in 2005 by Rjesh Agrawal and Paresh Davdra in an apartment just outside of London. By 2011, the pair had begun to experience some success, with the company having completed over £1 billion worth of transfers on behalf of its customers. The founding of Xendpay was natural progression for the company, which had already benefited from Paresh’s experience in his father’s foreign exchange brokerage shortly after graduating university.

Xendpay is currently led by co-founder, Paresh, who acts as CEO. He works closely with Chris Humphrey, who is CEO of RationalFX. I suspect that Xendpay receives significant support from the the core personnel of RationalFX, such as Renzo Giannini, who is Head of Compliance, and Richard Spencer, who is Head of Product & Marketing. The managerial team is rounded out with Head of Operations, Simon Allen, and Head of Technology, Giuseppe Naccarato.

1.1. Company details

2. Supported currencies

Xendpay supports the exchange of 48 currencies, leading to a total servicing of approximately 173 countries. For the most part, the company facilitates its transfers using the SWIFT banking network, which allows it to deliver funds to all corners of the globe. The downside to this network is that there may be charges incurred by the recipient, of which Xendpay has no control of.

The Xendpay online platform has no minimum or maximum transfer value. This is an exciting feature for high-net-worth and commercial customers, who may have run into the limitations of other online services in the past.

3. Exchange rates and fees

Before committing to using a currency transfer service, it’s important to understand its business model. Put simply, a company like Xendpay typically generates revenue in two ways. Firstly, it may charge a transaction fee for executing each transfer. Secondly, it may also take a margin on the exchange rate, also known as the “spread”; which is the difference between the exchange rate of the wholesale market (i.e. the interbank rate) and the exchange rate offered to the customer.

When comparing the pricing of Xendpay against traditional banks, the company fares pretty well. Banks typically charge a large transaction fee and a 5% margin on the total value of the transfer. Xendpay, on the other hand, charges a small flat fee of only £X. The exchange rates are also much more competitive, averaging between 0.77% of the total amount transferred for small values (£1,000), and 0.52% for larger values (£100,000).

When comparing Xendpay to other specialised currency transfer services, it stacks up very well. While companies such as TransferWise (review) and CurrencyFair (review) don’t take a margin on the value of the transfer, and rather they provide their customers with the mid-market rate, they do charge a larger fee to compensate; amounting to approximately 0.50% of the transfer value. Even though Xendpay doesn’t provide the mid-market rate, its rates are not too far away, especially for larger values.

As an example, let’s compare Xendpay against its competitors when exchanging British Pounds (GBP) into Australian Dollars (AUD):

As you can see, there are certainly many benefits to using Xendpay. With its ability to provide payments to hundreds of countries, it does provide excellent value and is very close to the market leaders. In addition, it should be noted that any transfer conducted via Swift can possibly incur additional hidden charges by correspondent banks; the amount depending on the amount of the transfer and the recipient’s bank.

4. Transfer speed

The transfer speed of an average transfer with Xendpay depends on a couple of things, including the currency you’re sending, the size of the transaction, and the banks involved. For the majority of currency pairings, you should allow between 2 – 4 days for the transferred funds to reach the recipient’s account.

5. Key features

What are the key features of Xendpay’s online platform? Let’s take a look at the various payment services offered by the company.

5.1. Spot contracts

A spot contract consists of a single payment from one currency to another at the currently available exchange rate. If you need to send money right away, simply log in to the Xendpay website or app and with a couple of clicks a transfer can be arranged. Unfortunately, at this stage, this is the only type of payment that Xendpay can facilitate. As a result, anything resembling the more advanced features offered by other currency transfer services, such as scheduled payments or conditional orders, are not possible.

6. Customer service

The headquarters of Xendpay and RationalFX are located in the United Kingdom. Their office can be contacted by phone or email.

+44 20 7220 8158 (UK)
customer.services@xendpay.com

In my experience, I found the Xendpay customer service staff to be friendly and helpful. I did not have to wait too long to speak with someone on the phone, and my queries by email have been answered in a prompt and professional manner.

7. Security and regulation

Is Xendpay safe? Let’s take a look at the various initiatives adopted by the company to ensure the security of its customers.

7.1. Government regulated

As Xendpay’s parent organisation, RationalFX, is headquartered in the United Kingdom, the company is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and licensed as an Electronic Money Institution under reference 507958.

7.2. Customer funds held on trust

In accordance with the standards imposed by government regulators, the funds of Xendpay’s customers are held in segregated accounts and are therefore kept completely separate from the company’s own operating accounts. This ensures the security of customer funds, should Xendpay encounter financial difficulties.

7.3. Website security

The Xendpay website is protected with TLS encryption, which prevents sensitive data from being intercepted during your visit. You can confirm that this is in place by recognising a green padlock next to the website’s URL on your browser.

8. Reputation

Can you trust Xendpay? Let’s take a look at look at some of the key factors which affect the company’s reputation.

8.1. Trustpilot

As of publication, Xendpay has received 4,258 reviews on Trustpilot with an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars; representing a positive experience in 85 percent of interactions with its customers.

Here are some of my observations on the feedback posted:

8.2. Social media

Upon viewing the Facebook and Twitter feeds of Xendpay, we can see that its staff usually reply the same day to any query raised on any of these platforms. It appears that the company’s customer service team receive quite a few inquiries through these platforms, which is probably due to their high transaction volume.

Hello Vishnu, I have asked customer support for details and will get back to you via DM as soon as I can.

— xendpay (@xendpay) April 20, 2018

The remainder of Xendpay’s posts revolve around keeping its customers up to date with the company’s own news, rather than providing specific commentary on foreign exchange markets.

8.3. Mainstream media

As for the mainstream media, their reporting on Xendpay has generally been positive, and provides the company with a handful of vanity pieces. Most either highlight Xendpay’s claim that they are the first currency transfer service to make paying a fee optional, or are professional profiles on the company’s two founders.

Can ‘pay what you want’ work in the cash transfer market? Forbes

The ‘working class boy’ who built a £1bn business. BBC

How a strong business culture can create a huge business opportunity. PwC

9. User experience

The Xendpay website has been designed thoughtfully, with special attention being paid to user experience and simplicity. It is available in 5 languages; English, French, German, Polish, and Spanish. In addition to its online platform, Xendpay has also developed a mobile app for Apple devices.

9.1. Signing up

The sign-up process is relatively straight-forward. You begin by entering your email, a password and electing the type of account that you would like, before providing essential contact information such as name, address and phone number. The entire process takes around 10 minutes.

Before you are able to commence transferring funds, you first need to provide proof of identification so Xendpay can verify your account. Two documents are required; one proving your identity, such as a passport or drivers licence, and one proving your address, such as a bank or utility statement.

9.2. How does Xendpay work?

To familiarise you with the Xendpay service, I’ll take you through a transaction I completed with them recently. If you need some guidance in navigating your own account, you can follow along below.

Step 1

Visit xendpay.com and log in. Once you have entered the RationalFX website, you are greeted with a basic dashboard. To begin a transaction, click Send Money.

Step 2

Select the originating and destination countries, as well as the amount that you wish to send. You can elect this amount in either currency denomination. The transfer fee will be added on top of your designated amount. You can choose to amend this figure or remove it entirely.

Step 3

Add the information of your intended recipient, including their bank details.

An additional form is squeezed into the process, asking for the purpose of your payment and the source of your funds.

Now is the time to elect your method of payment. If you wish to pay by debit or credit card, this is the fastest way of transferring funds to Xendpay. I chose to proceed with bank transfer.

A summary of the quoted transaction is provided for your review. Once you are sure you want to confirm and proceed with the transaction, click Finalise Transaction.

Step 4

Once your transaction is confirmed, you are provided with instructions to proceed with your part of the payment. Before Xendpay can complete the transfer, you will first need to send your funds to their local account from your country of origin.

Step 5

Once your funds have been received by Xendpay, they will finalise the transfer to your recipient. You can track your transfer online and you will be provided with email updates as the payment moves through the system.

All done!

Finally, once the transfer has been completed, its status will be updated accordingly and the payment will be reflected in your recipient’s account shortly.

In my experience, the Xendpay online platform was simple to use and I was satisfied with the updates provided to me along the way. The entire process took 3 business days, and the funds arrived into my recipient’s account as requested.

10. Conclusion and final thoughts

Xendpay’s “pay what you want” attitude may seem like a gimmick at first glance. But even if you choose to pay their suggested fee, the overall cost of the service is very competitive and not far off market leading services such as TransferWise and CurrencyFair. While delivering funds via SWIFT has its downsides, it does provide a broad reach of payment destinations.

For what the service sets out to do it does well; cheap payments to all corners of the world. But unfortuantely, id doesn’t do much more than that. There are no advanced foreign exchange tools whatsoever, such as those offered by HiFX (review) or RationalFX. And there are no flexible delivery options, such as those offered by WorldRemit (review) and TransferGo (review). But other than that, if you are happy with very simple product that get the job done cheaply, Xendpay might be the service for you.

Our rating: 4 stars