Q: When is the business closed and are you open on public holidays?

Freemarket is closed on UK bank holidays . You can still access the platform, however, certain payments won’t be through until the next working day. Our FX and payments services won’t be available during these days. If you would like any assistance, call us on 020 3393 2709 or contact our Support team.

Question 1

When is the business closed and are you open on public holidays?

Accepted Answer

Freemarket is closed on UK bank holidays.

You can still access the platform, however, certain payments won’t be through until the next working day. Our FX and payments services won’t be available during these days.

If you would like any assistance, call us on 020 3393 2709 or contact our Support team.

Question 2

How can I view transactions on the platform?

Accepted Answer

To examine the prior transactions you've made, go to the transactions tab after logging into the platform. You will be able to view a comprehensive history of all scheduled, pending, and completed activities that have taken place for your transactions. You can see the sum of the balances in the various currencies you've transacted in on the left-hand side beside your planned and past trades; to view a breakdown of this information, click the "balances" tab.

Question 3

What is a foreign exchange spot transaction?

Accepted Answer

A spot FX trade is when the exchange or trade takes place at the same point the transaction is settled. You buy and sell the currency at the current market rate, also known as a spot price. Settlement usually occurs within the days preceding but due to our buying power, and us holding balances in different currencies, we can do this instantly.

Currency pairs may differ, you may trade, G10 currencies, minor pairs, emerging markets, or exotics. It’s worth noting that some currencies are less liquid than others, which might lead to a larger difference in the buy and sell price.

You can read more on FX trading from IG, CityIndex, Investopedia, CMC Markets & Refinitiv.

Question 4

How can I fill out an application to create an account on another company's behalf?

Accepted Answer

A submission for a company can be quick and easy. You may complete the entire registration process online. Fill out the essential forms and submit any necessary supporting documentation. When your application has been received, please email us at hello@wearefreemarket.com, and a Relationship Manager will get in touch with you to help with any onboarding needs.

If we need additional information to support your application, you will be contacted by email.

Question 5

Can I get a MT103?

Accepted Answer

All banks and financial institutions utilise MT103, a SWIFT standard messaging protocol, as a globalised proof of payment document.

Although though it is no longer the quickest or cheapest means to transport money, SWIFT, which was first established in the 1970s, remains a trustworthy way to transfer funds between markets and jurisdictions. A bank or financial institution won't often provide you an MT103 receipt; if you do, it will likely cost you as the user. The MT103 provides you with a breakdown of the transaction, including information on the sender, the organisations handling the payment, the transaction's value, fees, and more.

Please contact Support for further information on this.

Question 6

How do I make payments from my account?

Accepted Answer

The option of creating a payment is straightforward when making a transaction from your account. If you have an account with us, you may transfer funds between accounts easily and at no extra charge. How you maintain funds to increase cashflow is a component of cash management.

You can use the platform at any time to make payments or transactions. However, because our banking partners don't work weekends and we don't make payments on the weekends, our settlement timeframes may be affected.

Question 7

Can I apply for a Freemarket account?

Accepted Answer

You can create an account with us if you're an organisation. Our registration procedure is simple, and we make every effort to finish applications quickly and activate your account as soon as possible. With Freemarket, you can settle and reconcile funds more quickly and in real-time, access new markets and currencies, and have trust in your banking relationships.

For more information on our registration process, please click here.

When clients need to utilise the platform, we want to make sure that every account is configured for international payments. When your account is live and has cleared all compliance checks, we'll let you know.

Question 8

Can I make a payment from my Freemarket account?

Accepted Answer

Your Freemarket account does allow you to send and receive money. This may be a pooled account or vIBAN account that accepts payments or makes payments to the beneficiaries. You may start to make payments right away by setting up an account and confirming payments on it.

A variety of online payments can be made using your Freemarket account, but they must be within our risk tolerance and not breach sending or receiving funds to or from countries where we do not have support. Being a regulated company, we take this seriously and update it frequently. Our operations team occasionally blocks specific payments that violate this.

How you want to send a payment may differ, by which scheme and channel, this could be SWIFT, SEPA, FPS and so on. Each payment has different costs, receipts (transaction message) and reporting.

SWIFT: this is used to send or receive international payments via the SWIFT payment network.
SEPA: SEPA stands for Single Euro Payments Area and it's a payment type used to transfer euro within the EEA.
SEPA Instant: allow you to send 100,000 per transaction, they are available 24/7, 365 days a year, and take no more than 10 seconds to reach payee’s account from the payer’s.
FasterPayments: for the majority of UK-based payments Faster Payments is in place for bank-to-bank payments and designed to speed up the process of sending money. It has a limit in place of £1m per transaction.
Target2: is the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system with payment transactions being settled processing euro payments.

If more funds are required for the payment in the platform, add them to generate a new payment. By navigating to the add funds area towards the top of the page's main menu, you may add funds to your account. Choose the currency of the funds you want to use for the payment from the add funds page, and the necessary bank information will then show up. After the funds have arrived in your account and are available for allocation, you will get an email confirmation.

After you have the funds, establish a new payment to continue, go to the transactions page, choose the beneficiary of the money (the beneficiary information will appear if it has already been used), and authorise the payment.

Question 9

How can I conduct a batch payment?

Accepted Answer

Businesses may submit a single file and make numerous payments across a variety of currencies and payment types using Freemarket's batch payments capabilities at no extra cost. The transaction types of the payments might vary, and our clients are able to make cross-border payments effectively and efficiently.

Quickly; saving the time and cost of manually typing or pasting-in payments
Efficiently; using a format configurable from their ERP or treasury platform
Accurately; minimising the expensive mistakes associated with manual keying

Important information on batch transactions

The service can be switched on or off depending on the client’s needs
Any client requiring this functionality should request it through their Relationship Manager
Multiple currencies can be included in the same batch
Each payment in the file will be treated as individual payments and will be debited as such. For example, a file which has 15 USD and 12 CAD payments will see 15 debits on their USD account and 12 debits on their CAD account
Clients will upload a .CSV file to the platform containing all the required data
The web dashboard can only be used to upload the payment file
There is a guide & template .CSV file in the appendix of this article
We accept a range of payment types on the file(s) e.g. SWIFT, SEPA, Faster Payments etc.
Each payment order will be subject to initial data input validation and checks
Any payments which do not pass validation (checks on file format, message content, account numbers etc.) will be highlighted when the file is uploaded
The payments which do not pass initial validation checks will have to be corrected or withdrawn from the file and escalated separately; the successful payments that have been checked & validated will continue through the process
Uploaded files will be processed throughout the day – there aren’t any specific processing times, however, there may be certain cut-off times in some currencies
Beneficiaries which have not authorised for single payments may be included in the file
All of the files will therefore be subject to two-factor approval before processing
If the file includes new beneficiaries, they will be created in the system with unauthorised status. If a subsequent payment is made to those unauthorised beneficiaries in the future, then the payment requires authorisation
Post import, payments will be checked by Freemarket & its banking partners for sanctions, PEPs, fraud and in more detail for payment scheme rules, message content, and reachability. Payments which are stopped for investigation at those stages will be removed from the file and the remainder of the file will automatically continue for processing

The batch payment procedure from start to completion

To access the batch payments screen, log into your Freemarket account and select the batch option.

Choose the pre-formatted CSV file by selecting the file upload button. To ensure the accuracy of the information, many validations will be performed, including checks of the account balance in each currency, beneficiary information, ultimate originator, and the maximum withdrawal amount necessary to complete the file. If there is a mistake, the system will indicate the cause so that it may be fixed:

All cross-border transactions worth more than 100,000 GBP must be made individually, without using the bulk option. You will receive an email or text message telling you that all validations are completed using an OTP. The message will also provide the total number of transactions and a special batch number (identifier).

You will be prompted to confirm the beneficiaries every 30 days using the platform's 2FA function. This indicates that the user must approve the batch by verifying the specified code. The system will create beneficiaries with the status "unauthorised" if more beneficiaries are added to the batch payment. The recipients must be authorised to receive future payments. The other account user(s) will be alerted if the account is set up for approval workflow and asked to confirm authorisation and to approve the user.

Once the preceding steps are finished and you can see all the payments, a new transaction type will be generated. There is no ability to accept the individual transactions in the file; just to approve or reject the batch as a whole. Once the batch payment is accepted, the payment won't go through until the system has completed processing each transaction.

As soon as everything has been processed, the batch's status will change to complete. The entire batch will be accessible in finished transactions. In order to confirm that the batch has been processed and is therefore finished, an email or SMS will be issued to the user.

Appendix

1.0 Format Guide

Note: comma is not allowed on the provided CSV as it will cause an error in the file.

Important: all mandatory fields need to be populated and field format adhered to for the file to be processed with no errors. Non-mandatory fields will need to remain blank.

Question 10

How does Freemarket safeguard my money?

Accepted Answer

Freemarket holds clients’ money in safeguarding accounts with its banking partners. These funds are held separately from Freemarket’s own operational funds and working capital. Freemarket’s banking partners are required to warranty that the safeguarded funds will not be used to satisfy or offset any other obligation including those obligations imposed on Freemarket itself. This means that the funds can only be used to make payment for the underlying Payment Services User. If that instruction is unable to be complied with, Freemarket must return the funds to the original source.

Freemarket does not maintain a safeguarding account for each individual client. Rather, Freemarket holds pooled accounts in the name of “FreemarketFX Ltd Client Accounts” and “FreemarketFX Ireland Limited” in each currency for the purpose of providing payment services.

Individual clients’ funds in safeguarding accounts are identified through your Freemarket virtual payment account number and/or virtual reference number. These records are used to reconcile credit, debit and balance transactions each day such that (i) the recorded positions individually show what amount of the total balances held is attributable to you; and (ii) the individual amounts recorded in virtual accounts add-up to the total balance held in the real account. Freemarket also moves fees and charges out of the safeguarding account to its own account as it is required to do so at least daily.

Freemarket’s banking partners are credit institutions authorised in the UK and in the European Economic Area. For more information on our safeguarding processes please see our other articles on the subject here.