Originally written by Partner Content on Small Business
Starting a financial-focused business in 2021 is challenging enough as the full impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has yet to be fully understood. This is especially true in the money exchange space as the industry is dominated by multi-billion pound giants like Wise (formerly TransferWise) who compete against multi-hundred-billion pound banks.
Anyone thinking now is an opportune time to enter the currency brokerages space may not fully understand how crowded the space is and just how much power the industry titans have.
The currency brokerage industry: many big and small players
One of the first steps in evaluating a business idea is understanding the competitive environment. Starting a business knowing there are few companies in the space offering a competing service makes the entrepreneurship journey just a little bit easier.
But looking at the global foreign exchange space shows this is far from the case. There are at least two dozen FX exchange providers in London alone. London is the epicenter of the global foreign exchange industry so it is natural for a large number of companies to be based out of the United Kingdom.
There are other major global money exchange hubs, including New York City, Singapore,