Money Transfers News

On Wednesday the UK published its latest batch of employment figures. They revealed that the UK Unemployment Rate softened to a six-year low of 6%, the lowest level of joblessness recorded since the global financial collapse was triggered in 2008. On the surface the results were very positive, so given that the labour market is such an important aspect of the UK economy, why didn’t the Pound Sterling exchange rate jump after the report was released? Pound weakness persisted in the aftermath of the data release for several...

When the global economic crisis struck in 2008, governments and financial institutions from across the world had to introduce measures to prevent complete financial collapse. Many developed nations opted to deploy the strategy of cutting interest rates to historic lows in order to reduce borrowing costs and ease conditions for consumers. In the UK the Bank of England cut interest rates to a record low of 0.5% in March 2009 and has held rates at that level ever since. However, with the UK economic recovery stepping up a gear during...

<strong>Today saw the best exchange rates available for those wishing to carry out money transfers to France, Spain, Ireland and Germany etc.</strong> Worldwide manufacturing data dominated the economic data releases yesterday at the start of the trading week and month. Significant slowdowns were shown in the manufacturing data releases from the UK, the euro zone and China. The Pound shrugged off the data release showing that UK manufacturing slipped to its lowest reading since June 2013 by rising to briefly trade at...

The Pound Euro exchange rate reached 1.19 GBP/EUR yesterday, meaning the best pound to euro money transfers since 20 January 2013 as the markets continue to bet that the Bank of England will have to increase interest rates sooner than the 2016 date currently anticipated by new Governor Mark Carney when he presented his ‘forward guidance’ policy last month. Yesterday, in testimony to Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee, Carney said that the Bank was ready to act if the UK's fledgling recovery failed to materialize. He also...

The pound fell heavily yesterday against all but the high yielding currencies after the gloomiest ever economic forecast of the UK economy from the Bank of England since it gained independence in 1997. In its quarterly inflation report, Governor Sir Mervyn King announced that the Bank was reducing its 2013 UK growth forecast to about 1% citing "a greater risk that the UK economy may be in a period of persistent low growth”, with problems in the euro zone and the rest of world continuing to have an impact at home. Sir Mervyn...

The euro remains close to a two month low against the dollar as uncertainty about Greece and weak German economic continued to fuel risk aversion thus increasing demand for the safe haven qualities of the dollar. The euro zone continues to dominate the news agenda, largely for the wrong reasons. The one bright spark yesterday was provided by the news that the Greek Treasury manager to sell close to €5 billion in short term bonds yesterday thus averting a possible default at the end of the week. However, the outlook for the country...

Trading volumes were down at the beginning of the trading week with the US markets closed for the Veterans Day public holiday. Continuing concerns about the euro zone and the so called US ‘fiscal cliff’ increased risk aversion aiding the dollar which reached a new two-month high against the euro. Despite the positive vote in Athens on Sunday night and some complimentary remarks from German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the progress Portugal has made to date, a public spat between the euro group of finance ministers and the...

The Bank of England’s (BoE) voted yesterday to keep the key interest rate and level of asset purchases in the UK unchanged for November at 0.5% and £375 billion respectively. UK interest rates have now remained at their historic low of 0.5% for 44 straight months dating back to March 2009. The asset purchase program, commonly known as quantitative easing (QE) was also maintained at £375 billion despite the poor data out of the services and manufacturing sectors of the UK economy in the last few weeks. Analyst Simon Hayes from...

After a long, expensive and fractious campaign and despite the fact that not all the votes have been counted, President Barack Obama has won re-election for a second term in office by a surprisingly larger majority than most had predicted. Analysts at Goldman Sachs pointed out that since 1976 the S&P 500 stock market index in New York has gained an average of 10% in the 12 months following the presidential elections regardless of the winning party. The immediate result in the foreign exchange market is an increase in risk...

Ahead of the US Presidential election, the euro took centre stage in the markets yesterday, albeit for all the wrong reasons as it fell to a two month low against the dollar but was largely unchanged against the pound as bad economic data continues to dominate the headlines on both sides of the channel. In the UK, Markit published yesterday the purchasing managers´ index (PMI) for the services sector in the UK for October at 50.6 points, versus a figure of 52.2 for September. The services sector dominates the UK economy thus this...