BookMyForex

BookMyForex is India’s first and largest online marketplace for foreign currency exchange and international remittances that connects customers looking to exchange currency with banks and RBI authorized forex companies.^{[1] [2]} BookMyForex was incorporated in September 2011 by Sudarshan Motwani and Nitin Motwani.^[3][4] It is headquartered in Gurgaon, India. BookMyForex claims the rates on the platform are updated every three seconds and customers have the option of locking-in live rates and setting rate alerts.^[5] BookMyForex claims to offer same-day doorstep delivery of foreign exchange with an average delivery time of four hours.

History

BookMyForex was launched in November 2012 with the aim "to disrupt the $40 billion dollar foreign exchange market in India by creating a scalable, low cost business model that provides an unbeatable value proposition to the end customers”.^[6][7] Sudarshan Motwani, CEO of BookMyForex.com and former Head of Forex at ING Vysya Bank, said in an interview with the Economic times ^[8] that: “I took a premature retirement and set out on a driving Holiday, I often thought about the impossible situations that our customers faced with respect to rates of foreign currency that have been opaque ever since. As someone with a financial background I knew exactly the rates I should be getting but I wasn’t able to find them anywhere.^[9]” Conceived initially only as a platform for providing foreign exchange services online, BookMyForex tied up with a single entity – Axis Bank to execute all forex deals. In early 2014, BookMyForex migrated to a marketplace model and started introducing other banks and currency exchange vendors on the platform to promote healthy competition amongst forex dealers.

Marketplace

BookMyForex is an online foreign exchange aggregator, which claims to offer live exchange rates and gives its users the ability to book their transfers online. Through its online marketplace, BookMyForex, the company claims to offer real-time foreign exchange price feed, the first to do so.. Company co-founder Nitin Motwani has stated his vision for the site to become the "Expedia of foreign exchange". BookMyForex aims to give forex services, which are long available for larger companies, to small and medium-sized enterprises. The minimum transfer amount in the marketplace is, while the company claims an average transfer size of approximately BookMyforex has handled transactions worth 6 billion INR so far.^[10]

Services

BookMyForex provides foreign exchange related services such as money changing (sale and purchase of forex products), private overseas remittances (international money transfers). All other transactions are fulfilled through branches of partnering exchange companies and banks like Axis Bank and ICICI Bank. Currently, BookMyForex claims to offer live currency exchange rates in 14 currencies through its portal. BookMyForex through its channel partners claims to offer pick ups and door delivery of currency in more than 185 Indian cities. Currently, BookMyForex provides the following products to its customers: Traveller’s Cheque Prepaid Travel Forex Cards International Wire Transfer Demand Draft Foreign Currency Notes

Investment

BookMyForex received seed funding amounting to Rs 1.5 Crore ($225,000)^[11] from an Individual investor, Tejbir Singh, the former promoter and executive Director of the erstwhile Bank of Punjab. Faering Capital,^[12] a private equity investor, in March 2016 bought a 26% stake in BookMyForex.

Alliances and Partnerships

BookMyForex forged a tie-up with Axis Bank in late 2012 to fulfill orders placed via BookMyForex across all 2900 branches of Axis Bank. In May, 2016, BookMyForex joined hands with MakeMyTrip,^[13] one of India’s leading online Travel company, which allowed MakeMyTrip’s customers to purchase foreign currency through BookMyForex. Apart from banks, BookMyForex has tied up with foreign exchange companies like Centrum Direct Ltd.,Weizman Forex, Orient Financial Service and FRR Forex to fulfill the increasing volume of customers.

Zero margin sale and exchanging currency for free

BookMyForex introduced the ‘Zero Margin Campaign’^[14][15] and claim it as the first of its kind campaign where customers could exchange currencies at exact Inter-bank or mid-market rates. Nitin Motwani in an interview with Live Mint claims, “This is the world's first such campaign where retail consumers can buy foreign exchange at rates at which banks deal with each other when making transactions of USD one million or more.” The campaign garnered significant news coverage and was widely considered unique and disruptive

Media Attention

BookMyForex was adjudged as one of the top 50 performing startups in India by The Smart CEO Startup 50 and TiE Bangalore.^[16]

See also

• Bureau de change
• Remittance
• Foreign exchange market
• Foreign exchange company
• Exchange rate
• List of foreign exchange companies
• Financial technology

References

External links

• Official website