1st Contact Forex South Africa
In this page, we volition review the 1st Contact coin transfer company and explain all the pros and cons of using it for your money transfer needs. We focus on the important aspects like fees and commutation rates, the quality of the online trading platform, and the level of service provided.
| Logo |  |
| 🏛️ Established | 1995 |
| 🌎 International Clients | Yes |
| 💱 Currencies Offered | 25 |
| 💷 Minimum Transfer | None |
| 📲 Trading via | Online and over the phone |
| 🏢 Offices In | London (United kingdom), Cape Town (SA), Melbourne (AUS) |
| ⚖️ Regulation | Regulated in the U.k. (FCA), licensed in Due south Africa (FSB) and Australia (AFSL/ASIC) |
| 🤯 Fees | No fee on transfers above £2,000 |
| Promotional Code | Receive £20 if you refer a friend |
| 👨👩👧👦 Client Reviews | one review (Trustpilot), 698 (reviews.io) |
| ⭐ Client Rating | three.7 (Trustpilot), iv.91 (reviews.io) |
| Website | https://www.1stcontact.com/forex |
| 🏆 Awards | N/A |
| 👍 Advantages | Transfers over £2,000 with no fixed fee International with 3 offices in dissimilar continents Fast 24/7 payments with an online payment portal Secure, licensed and established company A great solution for sending ZAR outside of South Africa |
| 👎 Disadvantages | Small transfers tin can be costly with its fixed fees Charges both an exchange rate margin and a fee No mobile app |
Our Rating: N/A
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Company Data and Credibility
Company size:
1st Contact was formed in 1995 with a primary focus on aiding professionals immigrating to the U.k.. Their services covered; contracting, tax returns, immigration, forex, aircraft and travel. Afterward many years of exceptional growth, largely driven by listening to their customers growing listing of requirements from living abroad, 1st Contact expanded into the Sable Group.
1st Contact has at present rebranded to its parent companies brand – Sable International and is a medium-sized company with 50 to 150 employees, and 3 international offices dotted around the globe. Whilst they're not market leaders, they are certainly well established and have been operating for over twenty years. They currently have over 50,000 registered clients and facilitate over 120,000 transactions per year.
Over the final 18 months, the firm has been slowly phasing out the 1st Contact brand, rebranding as Sable International. All accountants, brokers, and advisors that clients have been dealing with will not be going anywhere as the entire 1st Contact team will exist in the same roles at Sable International.
Exterior of FX risk direction Sable International continues to operate in dissimilar areas, such as Accounting, Immigration Services and Wealth Informational (including financial planning and mortgages). These operations have immune 1st Contact to scale in size and arguably offer a stronger remittance service as a upshot of their growing infrastructure.
Regulated Past:
Registered with HM Acquirement & Customs in the Uk as a Money Services Business organization, regulated past the Financial Conduct Authority, licensed in Southward Africa (FSB) and Commonwealth of australia (AFSL/ASIC).
1st Contact proudly market themselves as being highly licensed and regulated, offering the utmost security and an established company presence.
Decision:
1st Contact'due south multi-faceted visitor seems to be something of the past, with newer fintechs generally specializing in just one service lone. Nevertheless, the 1 central advantage over many challenger Forex firms is that they have a proven track record and offer reliability and security. Being an older firm means they empathise sustainability regarding the exchange rates offered – instead of beingness unrealistically and unsustainably low that some other companies have struggled with in the past.
Client Feedback
Inquiry:
1st Contact does not take many reviews on either of the ii chief review platforms – TrustPilot or Feefo. They have however earned over 700 reviews on reviews.io in which they are rated 4.91 – based on 759 reviews to be specific. 99% of clients would also happily recommend 1st Contact as a provider.This is of course very positive, with very few negative comments. 1st Contact appears to have many long-standing clients with a heap of reviewers happy to boast of beingness a 1st contact customer for over x years, regularly praising the excellent service and continual notification of transfer updates. There is only 1 review on Trustpilot, which is too small a sample size to accept seriously.
The people who loved working with 1st Contact mentioned:
- Long-continuing customer relationships
- Easy and simple to use
- Competitive Exchange Rates
- Excellent customer service with quick response times
We could simply find one complaint:
- Late delivery of funds on one occasion (over 2/3 days tardily)
Conclusion:
Almost all of the negative comments are surrounding the issue of payments being belatedly. However, it seems that the vast majority of the overall comments were satisfied with the speed of the transactions, too as the cost and service. Quite a significant number of Sable International reviews are from clients based in Southward Africa. With these beingness more often than not overwhelming positive it only farther cements Sable International'south capabilities in the region.
Reviews for Sable International
Whilst the parent company of 1st Contact was operating independently, Sable International clustered 141 reviews with a 4.81 / five score on reviews.io. Much similar the 1st Contact reviews, Sable International clients regularly praised Sable International for an incredibly professional service and excellent response times.
Exchange Rate & Fees
Fees:
Fees differ, autonomously from with transfers over £two,000, which are gratis. To give a few examples of the fees to testify their high variance:
- Britain to Australia = £2
- Uk to Poland = £0.90
- UK to South Africa = £x
- Eurozone to the UK = €5.00
Some of the fees are relatively standard and are what you lot might look on small-scale transfers from an established remittance visitor – whilst others appear to be quite large. Additionally, every 5th transfer y'all make volition be gratis.
Substitution Rates:
The commutation rates consist of an added margin. They fall between the interbank charge per unit (the true exchange rate) and the rate offered past highstreet banks (3% to 5% markup). The verbal margin is non explicitly appear by 1st Contact, but this may be because it's not fixed.
Limits:
There are no minimum or maximum limits. The likely reason for non having a minimum limit is because of the fixed fees, and likewise, the reason of non having a maximum limit is likely because of the exchange rate margin added.
Determination:
The fixed fees per transfer means that very small transfers will likely be expensive – perhaps as expensive as a traditional bank. Yous also never know the verbal margin that 1st Contact are adding. Therefore, its cheapness or transfers is completely unknown for large transfers. Furthermore, you're required to manually check earlier every transfer to ensure the margin isn't excessive (because in that location's no guarantee), which is inconvenient.
Global Accomplish & Service
Research:
- Defended Dealer: No
- Offices: UK, South Africa and Australia
- Ways to approach: Online, Telephone, Email, Alive Chat
- Translations: English
- Accepts clients: Recommends to call regarding countries that aren't listed on the website
- Currencies Handled: 25
- Client reviews: iv.91/5 on reviews.io
Determination:
The primary USP of 1st Contact/Sable International has to exist its physical presence in Southward Africa. Due to local regulatory requirements whatsoever FX firm looking to take ZAR out of the country must have a local ZAR business relationship in Southward Africa from which to motility the funds from. Something only possible if you lot take a locally registered office, which many of the worlds' largest brokers don't have. In fact, information technology'due south only our top rated provider Currencies Directly that also holds a Southward African office which allows them to seamlessly motility ZAR out of the state.
1st Contact have a worldwide accomplish. With offices in three continents and offering 25 currencies, on paper it seems that 1st Contact are attempting to expand every bit much equally possible (although 25 currencies is far from impressive). This isn't entirely true though, as the website is extremely centered around S Africa, Australia and the U.k. (where its offices are). Whilst there are many currencies that they do not regularly deal in, they recommend contacting them if you're from a country that isn't listed, just in case as it's a matter that can be resolved.
Additional Functionalities
Originally, 1st Contact used to keep things simple by offer simply forex spot rate transfers. However since the make has merged with Sable International users tin benefit from several market social club services, such every bit Limit orders, Cease-loss orders and OCO orders. This means that clients tin can take their orders fulfilled based on automated criteria, so they tin pre-order and look for the market to line-up and the order to exist executed.
Forward contracts are besides offered so you can buy a currency in the future, on a specific date, for an agreed electric current price.
Decision:
1st Contact/Sable are offering such forex hedging tools, which many money transfer companies exercise, in order to attract the custom of small-scale businesses and freelance workers equally well equally expats. The visitor makes good apply of a well integrated pool of services, thus having a big infrastructure to leverage its forex dealings.
1st Contact Review Summary
Bottom Line:
Many providers focus purely on the high volume, low-value transfer market (e.grand. for holidaymakers), and many will focus on SMEs who wish to transfer large sums simply. 1st Contact serves as a heart ground. Stock-still fees make very pocket-sized transfers very plush, whilst transfers cheapen upwardly as they abound larger. Information technology's important to note that the margin is not explicit, and then information technology'south impossible to evaluate the cost of the transfer, which is a significant disadvantage of using them. In that location is however good client back up, a alive chat characteristic and 24/7 payments. It falls brusk in how many currencies it handles, but this is possibly considering it has no minimum transfer so they have to stay clear of some of the more costly exotic corridors. Overall, the company is long-established for a company in this marketplace meaning information technology'south secure simply ultimately struggles in transparency, fees and currency selection.
Source: https://moneytransfercomparison.com/1st-contact/
Posted by: milamzild1970.blogspot.com
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