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Importance of currency audits in 2025

ended 19. June 2025

The forex markets are crazy at the best of times, but this year they have been borderline schizo. How important is it for businesses trading internationally to monitor, or audit, their forex processes and what are the risks of not doing so in such a fast-moving market. What percentage of UK businesses, in your experience, leave themselves overexposed to the vagaries of the market? And what extreme examples have you seen of UK firms being undone by poor forex decisions (or zero decisions)?

2 responses from the Newspage community

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Tony Redondo
Founder at Cosmos Currency Exchange
Trading internationally without a currency audit and using instruments like forward contracts is playing with fire at normal times in the currency markets, and 2025 has to date been anything but normal. Of new clients, less than 30% are prepared. Most don’t even know they have tools available. I onboarded a UK engineering company last month that has always used their bank. In January, they contracted to sell their specialist equipment to a US client for delivery in 6 months. They did their sums in January at $1.22 to the Pound. On a $1m contract that would have netted them £819,672. A forward contract wasn’t even offered by the bank, let alone discussed. The £ is now at $1.35, so a $1m is now only netting them £740,741, £78,931 less than anticipated. That’s 65% of their anticipated profit up in smoke.
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Prem Raja
Head of Trading Floor at Currencies 4 You
The FX market has been incredibly volatile in 2025; EUR/USD is up over 10% YTD, and GBP/USD has surged by a similar amount. For any business trading internationally, failing to monitor or audit their FX exposure is a serious risk. In our experience, around 70% of UK businesses still leave themselves overexposed, either through inaction or relying on spot payments alone. We’ve seen firms lose tens of thousands, even six figures, from not locking in rates or having any strategy in place. One food importer we spoke to paid 9% more on a large EUR invoice simply because they didn’t hedge. Tools like forward contracts and market orders are there for a reason; they give businesses control in a market that gives none. In times like these, being reactive isn’t just risky- it’s expensive.