One euro account, 38 currencies, and a conversion you can see
Companies that trade across borders used to open an account in every country they sold to. One account that pays and collects in 38 currencies removes the reason to, and moves the cost of trading abroad somewhere it can be counted.
The account you opened abroad because you had to
For most small and medium companies, going international has never been a strategic decision taken in one afternoon. It arrives as a sequence of small obligations. A customer in Warsaw asks to pay in zloty. A supplier in Zurich invoices in francs. A contractor in London wants to be paid into a British account, and would rather not absorb the cost of receiving euro.
The traditional answer to each of those requests is the same: open a local account. It works, and it is why a company with fifteen employees can end up holding four banking relationships, four sets of credentials, four monthly fee lines and four statements that have to be reconciled separately at the end of the quarter.
What is rarely counted is the second cost. Every one of those movements crosses a currency at some point, and the crossing is charged. Not always as a fee: more often as a margin folded into the rate, which is the same money leaving the company without a line in the ledger to name it.
One account, and the conversion written down
The alternative is not a longer list of accounts. It is one account, in one currency, that can reach the others. The Reibanq business account is a euro IBAN in the company's own name; payments in and out run across 38 currencies, and reach recipients in 180 jurisdictions. There is no local account to open in each country, and no separate login for each market.
What changes is not only the number of relationships to maintain. It is that the conversion stops being invisible. The rate applied and the fee charged are written on the transaction, which means the cost of selling into a country is a figure the company can look up rather than reconstruct from the difference between two balances.
- One euro IBAN in the company's name, and one set of credentials.
- Payments and collections across 38 currencies, converted at the rate shown.
- The rate and the fee visible before you confirm, and written on the record afterwards.
- One statement across every movement, instead of one statement for each country.
Reconciliation stops being an investigation
Ask a bookkeeper what is difficult about a company trading in four currencies, and the answer is rarely the exchange rate. It is that the record is spread across institutions that do not agree on format, timing or reference fields. An invoice issued in sterling, paid into a British account, converted three days later and moved to the main euro account arrives in the ledger as three apparently unrelated lines.
When the movement happens inside one account, the trail stays intact. The receipt, the conversion and the outgoing payment are consecutive entries on the same statement, with the rate applied and the fee charged written on the record rather than inferred from the difference between two numbers.
That matters beyond convenience. A company that cannot demonstrate what a cross-border transaction cost cannot price its own exports accurately. The margin on a foreign order is frequently decided by costs that were never itemised.
Three situations where the account pays for itself
You sell abroad and are paid in the buyer's currency. The conversion happens once, at a rate you were shown, and appears on the same statement as the invoice it settles.
You buy abroad from a small number of recurring suppliers. Paying in the currency the invoice was issued in removes the second conversion that a round trip through a local account usually adds, and the mark-up that each leg of that round trip carries.
You pay people in the country they live in. Salaries and contractor invoices are predictable and recurring, which makes the cost of converting them a number worth knowing in advance rather than discovering on payroll day.
The case is weaker for a company with a single foreign customer paying once a year. Below a certain volume the administrative simplification is worth more than the saving, and it is fair to say so.
Four questions worth asking any provider
Accounts that reach several currencies are offered by banks, payment institutions and electronic money firms alike, and the labels are similar enough to be unhelpful. Four questions separate them quickly.
- Is the IBAN in your company's name? An account held in the provider's name with a virtual reference is a different product, with different consequences.
- Is the exchange rate the one you were shown? A fee written on its own line is measurable. A margin folded into the rate is not.
- Where are client funds held? Under European rules a payment institution safeguards client money separately from its own. Ask where, and with whom.
- What does the export look like? If your accountant cannot load the file, the reconciliation saving disappears.
Reibanq accounts run on payment services supplied and managed by Orenda FS B.V., and client funds are held separately from Reibanq's own money. The fee for each operation is published on the pricing page rather than quoted on request.
What companies ask before switching
Is this the same as a foreign currency bank account?
No. A foreign currency account holds one foreign currency and is usually opened with a bank in that country, with its own credentials and its own statement. Here there is one euro account in your company's name, and the other currencies are reached through the payment: the conversion is part of the transaction, at the rate you were shown.
Does invoicing abroad expose the company to exchange rate risk?
It does, and it does so from the moment the invoice is issued, whatever account receives the money. What an account can change is whether the cost of that exposure is visible: a rate you were shown and a fee written on the record let you price the risk into what you charge, instead of discovering it in the gap between the invoice and the amount that landed.
Can customers pay us in their own currency?
Yes. The payment reaches your euro account and the conversion is applied at the rate of the day, written on the transaction. What the customer sends and what you receive are two lines you can put next to each other.
How many currencies does the account actually reach?
38 in total, for payments in and out and for conversion. Payments can be sent to recipients in 180 jurisdictions, and all of it appears on one statement.
One euro account, 38 currencies to reach
An IBAN in your company's name, conversion across 38 currencies with the cost in view, and payments to 180 jurisdictions from the same screen.