How Paul Beare makes global market expansion easier, powered by Airwallex

Paul Beare specialises in supporting worldwide companies expanding to the UK. The team of 31 offers a range of services including forming UK entities, payroll registration compliance and ongoing reporting, VAT compliance, immigration sponsor licences and opening bank accounts. The team at Paul Beare act as trusted advisors, working hard to build lasting relationships with their clients by giving them a single point of contact whom they know well and trust.

The most challenging aspect of this process is setting up a UK bank account, especially when the company’s director isn’t located in the UK. Using a high street bank is both difficult and time-consuming. 

The Challenge

Clients often come to Paul Beare at a critical stage of their expansion. They need a partner to help them set up in the UK as quickly as possible because they already have orders or contracts to fulfil, or have an in-country manager they want to hire and put on payroll.   

Without any financial history in the UK, high street banks are reluctant to engage with overseas companies. This means that setting up a UK bank account is particularly painful, especially given the more stringent AML regulations in place. 

With high street banks taking at least six months to complete the process of opening a bank account for an oversea company, Paul Beare’s clients lose valuable time they could have devoted to building their business in the UK.

In addition, operating a UK bank account with a high street bank was expensive for Paul Beare’s clients, due to the high fees charged for international transfers between the UK and the clients’ home country. 

Paul Beare

CEO at Paul Beare

“Our clients were running around trying to get bank accounts open, wasting very valuable time which they could have used to focus on their business.”

The Solution

As a non-bank, Airwallex enables business customers to open multi-currency business accounts under its FCA regulated status as an Electronic Money Institution in the UK and 50 other licences around the world. This means Airwallex holds client funds in segregated and ring-fenced accounts. Furthermore, the global nature of Airwallex means it has built onboarding processes that accommodate complex non-domiciled ownership models. 

Historically, the time taken to open an account with a high street bank was around six months. To compare, setting up a business account is usually completed within seven to 10 working days. 

This streamlined process enables Paul Beare’s clients to focus their energies on their true mission of building their business. With their Airwallex business account, Paul Beare’s clients can also tap into favourable FX rates and cost-effective international transfers. This has saved Paul Beare’s clients considerable money while setting up operations in a new country.  

Airwallex’s individual approach to clients’ needs helps Paul Beare fulfil its goal of providing a personable service to its clients, thereby strengthening its brand.  Paul Beare’s team has been so impressed by Airwallex, they’ve adopted it into their own business operations and saved time and money compared with traditional alternatives.  

The Result

• Paul Beare, as a referrer of Airwallex to its clients, can now provide a faster solution for business customers needing to establish local banking when expanding into a new country.

• The ease of opening a business account with Airwallex has eliminated the lengthy paperwork that’s required by high street banks when international companies want to expand globally.  

• This has saved Paul Beare’s clients the immense hassle associated with trying to successfully open an account with a high street bank. 

Paul Beare, CEO of the firm, shares some of the reasons his team enjoys working with Airwallex. 

“We like the fact that your colleagues understand the complexities of international companies’ ownership structures. We’re talking to individuals, not a call centre.”

Paul Beare’s team has also found the Airwallex multi-currency cards a convenient and cost-effective way to spend while abroad. Employees can spend directly from held balances in multiple currencies, eliminating unnecessary FX conversion fees. 

“To compare with high street banks, the cost for using Airwallex is probably one fifth” said Monica Tong, Paul Beare’s Relationship Assistant.

Thanks to the Xero integration, the borderless cards’ in-built expense management makes it easy and fast to reconcile claims. Importantly, companies using Airwallx can stay in control of employee purchases using a single, real-time dashboard. 

“The favourable FX rate is a definite benefit of Airwallex” says Paul Beare, the company CEO, “Along with the time saved and ease of doing business.” 

Paul Beare

CEO at Paul Beare

“Companies like Airwallex will further promote the UK as a place for doing business and alleviate the strain and burden of operating across borders. Business accounts with associated functions will be absolutely paramount to the success of companies wanting to expand to the UK or Australia and New Zealand.”