FairFX Charges Into Commercial Cards

Shutterstock

FairFX is looking to grab a bigger piece of the corporate cross-border payments market and, on Monday (March 7), announced new support to help this cause.

According to reports, FairFX Group secured nearly $7.5 million from investors to strengthen its operations. The company, which provides businesses and customers with travel cash and card payment solutions, said it would use the funds to move forward in the corporate travel and global payments arena.

“As well as representing a major endorsement of FairFX’s business model and success to date, this investment provides the necessary resources to execute our land-grab strategy in 2016 and beyond and push aggressively into the corporate card space,” said FairFX Chief Executive Officer Ian Strafford-Taylor in a statement.

The financing was provided by activist investor Crystal Amber Fund.

According to reports, FairFX reported 32 percent annual turnover growth in 2015. The company reported last April that it secured more than 100,000 new customers — retail customers grew by 40 percent, as did corporate card customers, the firm noted.

“The growth across retail and corporate demonstrates the success of the marketing strategy, in terms of focusing on acquiring card customers over the lower-margin, cash-in-the-post customers,” the CEO added.

The investment still requires shareholder approval, reports said, and would lead to Crystal Amber holding a 9 percent stake in the company, as well as a place on FairFX’s board of directors should the company decide to increase its ownership of the firm to 15 percent. The deal also requires approval from the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority, reports said.