How agents can make even more money out of………money!

It was great meeting another Welsh Australian last week when The Mole had the opportunity of an exclusive interview with Graham Perry, originally from near Holyhead in Wales, now the man responsible for Travelex in Australia and driving forward Travelex business.

Graham has been with Travelex since 1987 and told The Mole that there are a number of core areas to the business including retail outlets at the at airports, enabling consumers to secure their travel money and business to business with importers and exporters and also outsourcing.

Graham said that one of the key areas he looks after is the relationship with travel agents as they have consumers who need to access money to travel and that Travelex is getting real traction in this space.

He said that they have pretty well done what they need todo towards getting agents on board and in particular with the Cash Passport and their goal is now to get agents to get their clients to become regular not occasional users of Cash Passport, as it is without doubt the most secure and convenient way of taking money overseas.

The measure we use to measure market share is how many travel money customers we have and compare that to departures in a month and while not very precise, over time it does give a fair guide and we have moved from 2% to 7% market share on that measure.

We are still a long way off industry norms around the world though, with travel agents having 30% of the market and Travelex the largest player.

He said, that tells me that there is huge scope in Aus they intend to achieve this by substantial growth and travel agents are critical to that growth.

He said that Travelex has placed their prepaid Cash Passport cards in agencies and they can fix the exchange rate on the spot so there is no guessing as travellers are on their holidays.  

It is low risk for the travel agent and the consumer can walk away with the card today, in  Euros, Pounds, US dollars and Aussie dollars and adding three more currencies at the end of the year which are HK dollars, Singapore dollars and NZ dollars with more to come as they move forward and the physical volume growing enough for Travelex to consider more currencies.

Graham said that the great thing about Cash Passport cards is that they are very secure because the card is not linked to the customer’s bank account and many people like to budget for their travel and set how much they are going to spend, but the card can always be topped up.

Also the card is purchased and loaded in the foreign currency of the country the client is going to so they do not have to worry about exchange rates, which is much better that a debit card in their home currency.

Cash Passport cards can be used at ATM’s, are pin protected and like the old travellers cheques Travelex global centres can help clients out at any time.

Graham said that another key factor was that the client always received two cards so in case of emergencies, for example if the card is stolen or it disappears into the ATM, the client has another card to fall back on.

He said that Cash Passport cards have taken over from travellers cheques and the only fee is a withdrawal fee and the agent will charge a fee at the time of sale.

The card is also reloadable through BPay and cards are reloaded very frequently anywhere in their world, but the good news is that whenever that occurs, the original agent that sold the card gets the commission.

Graham said that Travelex aimed to get the balance of agents to use Cahs Passports and they have placed stock in all the agent locations and built an online stock reordering system.

He said, “We also have 25 Sales Managers who are out there running training and also running agent incentives, for example, sell a $3000 Aussie card and get a $20 voucher, sell a $5000 Aussie card and get a $30 voucher and other incentives for foreign currency cards, with the vouchers useable at Woolworths, Coles, etc.”

“We also have three quarterly prizes and a cash grab, which is when the winner grabs as much as they can, with the recent winner grabbing more than $20,000.”   “We will be having another cash grab later on in the year and entry is automatic by selling any card!”

“Right now in July, August and September an agent can win a BMW Mini entry by simply selling a card and that competition only has five weeks to go.”

In closing Graham told the Mole that taking cash is becoming redundant and while Travelex sells a fair bit of cash the Cash Passport is the safest, most convenient and secure way for clients to carry their holiday cash.

He also said that travel agents are critical to the growth of Travelex’ future business, offer the highest potential for growth and he encouraged agent to visit www.travelexmoney.com.au to have look and see how easy it is, with selling a card taking three or four minutes, with the card active within 24hrs, earning the agent great commission for the life of the card.

Interview by The Mole with Graham Perry, Travelex.