Prime location: (Left to right) Gillian O’Shaughnessy, former National Sales and Marketing Manager, Darren Jenkins-Ferrett, Travelex Retail Managing Director, and Andrew Stainforth, Gauteng Regional Manager, about to hand in the Travelex Retail tender at OR Tambo International Airport in November last year.

After a fiercely contested tender between the big four banks and the major specialised foreign exchange retailers, Travelex Retail Foreign Exchange topped the tender rankings. It has been awarded a five-year contract to operate a bureau de change in the international arrivals section of the newly constructed Central Terminal Building at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg.

Travelex Retail Managing Director Darren Jenkins-Ferrett says, “We are ecstatic with this win. Travelex operates in most of the other major airports worldwide and OR Tambo has always been a missing part of the jigsaw.”

Travelex Retail will begin operating at OR Tambo in September 2008. The lead time will be used to recruit and train staff specialising in airport operations and fine-tuning systems to provide optimum service and fast transaction turn-around times.

Travelex operates at over 700 locations around the world and will bring this global experience to bear, together with the localised knowledge of FX Africa, the South African franchise partner, to create a truly “global meets local” experience for the consumer.

“The airport operation will be, by far, the busiest in our portfolio – open from 05h00 to 22h00, seven days a week,” says Gauteng Regional Manager Andrew Stainforth. Travelex expects the new location to significantly raise the profile of the Travelex brand in South Africa as well as offer its clients the added convenience of collecting their foreign exchange orders from the airport on their way out of the country.

However, the majority of the airport transactions will be generated by foreign tourists. “A location at OR Tambo positions us to take advantage of the rapidly growing inbound tourist market, especially the additional passenger volumes that will be generated when South Africa hosts the FIFA World Cup in 2010,” says Jenkins-Ferrett.

NEW brand ambassador: (Left to right) Sean Maloney, Travelex Retail and FX Africa Chairperson, Lee Savage, Western Cape Regional Manager, Schalk Burger, rugby player and Travelex Retail brand ambassador, and Darren Jenkins-Ferrett, Managing Director.

Travelex Retail has chosen Springbok and Stormers rugby player Schalk Burger to be its “brand ambassador” in South Africa. Burger joined Travelex Retail management and sports journalists from the Cape Times and Die Burger, among others, to sign the contract at a breakfast event in Cape Town on 3 April.

Travelex brand ambassadors embody the excellence of the Travelex brand. They are chosen for the qualities they demonstrate – integrity, striving to be the best, and never giving up – which make them sportsmen of world repute.

Burger was part of the team that won the Rugby World Cup in 2007, and was also in the squad that won the Under-21 Rugby World Cup in 2002. His personal achievements include winning the coveted International Rugby Board International Player of the Year award in the 2004 season and the Absa South African Rugby Player of the Year award that same year.

In 2006, Burger made a welcome return to provincial rugby after a career-threatening neck injury, exhibiting once again the characteristics that define a Travelex Retail ambassador: tenacity and a desire to beat the odds.

Managing Director Darren Jenkins-Ferrett says Burger was an easy choice as a sports ambassador, because of his easy-going and sincere personality. “Going into a sports business relationship with an athlete is risky. There is always a possibility the athlete might suffer from an injury, or be involved in a public scandal. There is no such risk with Schalk. He’s genuine, down to earth and has a really nice personality.”

Jenkins-Ferrett says that Burger’s winning attitude corresponds with Travelex’s “world-domination type of thoughts. We want to be the biggest, the best … We’ve grown so quickly. We want to take the business into Africa, and we have the capital to achieve that.”

Travelex Retail and FX Africa Chairperson Sean Maloney agrees with Jenkins-Ferrett. “We were a small business when we started seven years ago. We were nowhere on the radar, with huge competitors. We’ve proved that we’re one of the top players. We’ve now grown to 30 branches, with one opening at OR Tambo airport. We want to be the number one player in South Africa – and Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Maloney says Burger understands what it means to fight with big competitors. “Schalk has been under intense pressure when playing games and has faced some brutal competition.” However, he is still a gentleman. “I did some personal research on him before I met him. Sportsmen are usually quite brash, but I remember speaking to a manager of a bar about him. He recalled seeing a young girl walk down some stairs and fall. Schalk was the first guy out of a group to rush to her and help her up. He’s a gentleman who shows a lot of integrity and loyalty.”

Burger is enthusiastic about this new venture in his career. “It’s such a privilege; Travelex is a great company. Hopefully this will be the start of a wonderful relationship and I will conduct myself with the characteristics that will make Travelex proud to have me as a brand ambassador.”

Burger will appear in a variety of in-store campaigns as well as print, radio and TV advertisements. Jenkins-Ferrett says the South African team is looking for a similar advertising approach to the UK Travelex campaign, whose cheeky advertisement with Jonny Wilkinson beating a dog in a game of fetch was well received by the public.

Burger will also participate in corporate social responsibility activities. Jenkins-Ferrett says Travelex Retail is looking into funding youth rugby workshops, and hopes to use Burger’s expertise and skill in a few coaching sessions.

Maloney and Jenkins-Ferrett hope to acquaint Burger with the workings of the business and their plans for growth. They are convinced of his commitment as a brand ambassador, and are looking forward to working with him over the next four years.

Travelex Retail Regional Manager for the Western Cape, Lee Savage, says it is an honour working with a high-profile sportsman such as Burger. “Our company has grown from being tiny to having 100 staff … This is a proud moment. We want to take our brand to the next level, and he’s the perfect candidate for us.”

Previously, South Africans who travelled out of the country were entitled to the following allowances:

R160 000 per individual (12 years and older) per annum. R50 000 per individual (under the age of 12) per annum.

The new allowances are:

R500 000 per individual (18 years and older) per annum. R160 000 per individual (under the age of 18) per annum.

It is important to note the new allowances include all the following: travel allowance, maintenance payments, gift allowance and donations. This means that you may choose to utilise one or all four of the above transactions, but you may not exceed your allowance per annum.

Travelex Retail and FX Africa Chairperson Sean Maloney says the relaxation of foreign exchange controls “is an incredibly exciting development that has far-reaching consequences”.

“It’s increased our turnover dramatically already since the announcement,” adds Maloney. “There are a lot of people who want to take out more than R160 000 a year; they want to take their full allowance of R500 000. It begs the question, is there really foreign exchange control in South Africa anymore? Only maybe 0.5% of people can afford to take that much out each year, so this basically means there are no foreign exchange controls for 99.5% of the population.”

He adds that in his opinion, this is an excellent move for the South African economy, and he thinks that it will add to further investment here. “The fact is, people want to invest money where they can get it out again,” he points out. “This is a good move all round.”

Maloney says that Travelex Retail Exchange and FX Africa can facilitate foreign exchange for anyone who wishes to use their allowance, whether it be for travel or another reason.

The rand has since strengthened, as expected, as exchange control relaxation contributes to longer-term currency stability, if not strength. The rand may also have been negatively affected by the upward revision of government’s current account deficit forecasts given in the Budget, although they are close to our own. With the United States’ real interest rates now negative, South Africa would likely experience rand strength if the SARB hiked interest rates again, benefiting from increased carry trade activity.

Further, significant rand weakness would push inflation well beyond its expected peak of 10.0% year-on-year. The rand is subject to seasonality, weakening typically in the middle two quarters of the year as investors re-jig portfolios ahead of the Northern Hemisphere summer break and risk aversion levels rise, although this seasonal rebalancing of portfolios may have already taken place over the last couple of months in reaction to the sub-prime fallout.

MEDIUM TERM (SIX TO NINE MONTHS): We believe a budget deficit could easily re-emerge in the next few years, due to the vast spending requirements to bolster South Africa’s infrastructure, growing (and still unmet) socio-economic requirements and possibly even future changes in spending imperatives given the change in leadership of the African National Congress.

South Africa is not expected to run a current account surplus over the next 10 years either. The low level of domestic savings and scale of the infrastructure programmes involved will likely push the current account deficit toward 10% of gross domestic product. Strong inflows on the capital account have financed SA’s growing current account deficit to date and are expected to continue to do so in the future.

However, a sharp rise in risk aversion levels, which results in portfolio disinvestment from South Africa, could cause the rand to be at significant risk (particularly as we cannot rely on foreign fixed investment to any considerable degree to support the rand, not least because of our unreliable and inadequate electricity supply – a likely ongoing situation over the next 10 years).

LONG TERM: Longer-term, the rand is expected to depreciate by the inflation differential between South Africa and its chief trading partners, plus a risk premium. The SARB is likely to continue its policy of purchasing US dollars to build up its foreign exchange reserves when the prevailing exchange rates provide an environment that is opportune to do so.

Sydney, Australia’s largest city.

This month, we focus on Sydney, Australia’s largest and best-known city. Sydney is a dynamic, pulsating, multicultural centre that was established in 1788 by the British, and is now home to about 4.3 million people.

In many ways, this booming, exciting, modern city is symbolic of a country that has enjoyed more than 15 years of strong economic growth, averaging around 4% in recent years. The growth is on the back of strong agricultural exports and exploitation of a wealth of natural resources including minerals such as metal ores, gold and coal. Australia exports to more than 200 countries and has enjoyed a budget surplus since 2002, due to strong revenue growth.

Sydney is the state capital of New South Wales, and is the continent’s commercial capital (the capital of Australia is the less exciting Canberra). Located on Australia’s south-east coast, Sydney is nicknamed the “Harbour City” because it is built around the beautiful Sydney Harbour, home to the famous Sydney Opera House with its wave-like roof, and the giant Sydney Bridge. Sydney boasts a climate of warm summers and mild winters, with some rainfall spread throughout the year.

The city is famous for its diverse ethnic cultures: while English is the dominant language, there are communities of Chinese, Indonesian, Greek and Russian-speaking residents, among others.

Sydney is on the expensive side to visit and live in. A widely cited survey by Mecer Consulting in 2007 listed Sydney as the 21st most expensive city in the world and the most expensive in Australia.

The five most expensive were:

1. Moscow
2. London
3. Seoul
4. Tokyo
5. Hong Kong

In comparison, no South African cities were in the 50 most expensive cities.

But expense aside, Sydney is a tourist’s paradise. While there, go on a walking history lesson through the oldest part of the city, The Rocks (famous, too, for its pubs), tour the State Opera House, which has staged some of the most famous acts and productions in the world since Queen Elizabeth II opened it in 1973 and which has become an icon of modern architecture, and take a walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Be sure to visit the picturesque Darling Harbour, one of the best places to do some shopping, or have a meal here at one of the dozens of restaurants in “Eat Street”. You can also visit one or more of the city’s 34 beaches, Bondi Beach and Manly Beach being two of the most popular.

According to research undertaken in 2004, the city of Sydney estimates that a whopping 400 000 people travel into the city daily for shopping, education, business transactions and entertainment. Sydney buzzes with excitement and hype and there’s something to do for everyone, whether young or old. Other places to see include Chinatown, theme parks, museums, shopping centres, galleries, theatres and much more.

GIVING IT HIS ALL: FX Africa Managing Director Darren Jenkins-Ferrett said FX Africa will ‘‘eat, sleep and breathe’’ the Travelex brand.

Travelex, the world’s dominant player in foreign exchange, and FX Africa, an up-and-coming leader in the Southern African market, celebrated their new partnership at a gala dinner for business partners and clients in Johannesburg on August 21.

The evening was hosted by Founder and Chairman of FX Africa Sean Maloney and Founder and Chairman of the Travelex Group Lloyd Dorfman.

Master of Ceremonies FX Africa Managing Director Darren Jenkins-Ferrett opened the evening at the Sandton Sun hotel by saying, “Today is an historic occasion. I promised Mr Dorfman we’d eat, sleep and breathe his brand and it’s a promise I intend to live up to.”

He recounted how Dorfman had started Travelex, now the world’s biggest foreign exchange company, as a single bureau in Southampton Road in London with a loan of £25 000 in 1976, and had grown it into a company valued at more than £1-billion in 2005.

NEW PARTNERS: FX Africa Chairman Sean Maloney and Travelex Chairman Lloyd Dorfman speaking at the staff launch on Tuesday afternoon.

In a speech packed with anecdotes, Dorfman noted that Travelex had retail outlets at about 40% of the world’s airports, often as the sole forex retailer, or one of only two, with the potential to sell foreign exchange to 1,5-billion passing passengers a year. “Airports are the strategic crossroads of the global village,” he said.

Dorfman also pointed out that apart from retail foreign exchange, “We are the world’s largest non-bank supplier of global trade payments.” A third arm of Travelex, he said, was the fast-growing outsourcing business, which essentially entails selling pre-paid foreign exchange cards, “the plastic traveller’s cheques of the 20th Century. For us, this is a very core business and part of our future.”

Dorfman said that Travelex’s future lay not only in organic growth, but also in growth in new markets, including India, China and Japan. “The one gaping hole in our plan was to have a retail plan in Southern Africa,” he said, adding of the partnership with FX Africa: “We’re very excited about it; it offers huge potential.”

KICKING OFF: Former Springbok flyhalf, Joel Stransky, predicted either South Africa or New Zealand would be hoisting the World Cup trophy in 2007.

Dorfman ended with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Jenkins-Ferrett introduced FX Africa Founder and Chairman Sean Maloney as a gutsy entrepreneur, who similarly to Dorfman, had built a dominant forex company from a single retail outlet, in Zimbabwe in 1995. Of Maloney he said jokingly, “Sometimes he frustrates the hell out of me and sometimes he inspires the hell out of me. As he said to me recently, ‘Darren, sometimes I’m your mentor, sometimes I’m your tormentor!’”

Maloney thanked FX Africa’s customers and service providers over the years, and promised the guests, “This association with Travelex will help you feel at home overseas.”

Maloney recalled meeting Dorfman for the first time in his offices in London in 1988. “I warmed to him immediately and hoped I would do business with him one day.”

He also recounted some of challenges FX Africa had met in the past, including the decision to leave Zimbabwe in 2002, when the foreign exchange industry was effectively shut down, and to start up shop in South Africa, with two small branches in Messina and Pretoria. “We found ourselves in South Africa in a very competitive market, and seriously under-capitalised,” he remembered. FX Africa today has “more than 22 branches and 130 staff”, said Maloney.

LOCAL SUPPORT: About 150 business partners and clients attended the launch.

He showed slides of FX Africa’s first logo and early retail outlets, finishing with one of Travelex’s latest bureau in Heathrow’s Terminal 5. “This is what we’re aiming for.”

The evening’s guest speaker, South African rugby personality Joel Stransky, who kicked the winning drop goal for South Africa to win the 1995 World Cup, gave a speech peppered with humour, memories and his opinion on who would win the 2007 Rugby World Cup (“I’m sorry to say, not England,” he told Dorfman).

Stransky argued that only four teams had a realistic chance of winning the coveted William Webb Ellis trophy: Australia, France, South Africa and New Zealand, and that his money would be on either South Africa or New Zealand, with the latter probably having the slight edge, though anything could happen.

Stransky recalled that on the morning before South Africa’s historic 1995 win, the team’s manager, Morné du Plessis, had read out the very same Roosevelt quote Dorfman had highlighted earlier in the evening to the Springbok team. It was a coincidence, he said, “That bodes very well for the future of the partnership between Travelex and FX Africa”.

ENJOYING THE EVENING: Guests at the launch celebration of the new Travelex-FX Africa partnership.

Nancy Zhu and Gill Dodds	Gavin Visser, Viona Jonosky and Lee Savage	Stanley Kieser, Myles Janssens and Eleanor Woodman
Ronnie Moodley and Hennie Pretorius	Justin Moore and Ian Dry	Marilyn Lazarus, Vanessa Tait and Chantel Mare
Marian and Diana Sardu	Nick Bedford and Felicity Bedford	Brett Parker, Prudence Bekker and Anthony Kasanhayi
Lindiwe Gadd, Michael Wang, Godfrey Morley, Rong Gao and Themba Khumalo	Nuri Jhetam, Aysha Leher, Gairoonisha Booley and Moegamad Booley	Steven Chambers, Wynand du Preez and Graham Donaldson

FX Africa Founder and Chairman Sean Maloney

Local foreign exchange retailer FX Africa and global forex giant Travelex have announced a new partnership that will see FX Africa becoming the retail representative for Travelex in South Africa with immediate effect. Travelex wanted a local operator to work with so that their worldwide experience could be quickly leveraged into the South African market.

“The partnership will mean better-than-ever service for customers,” says FX Africa Founder and Chairman Sean Maloney.

Maloney also points out that the benefits of FX Africa’s partnership with Travelex will be synergistic for both companies. South African consumers who come to trust the Travelex brand at home will immediately recognise it and trust it when they travel overseas. “We want to create that home-away-from-home feeling and sense of security for our customers.”

Maloney adds, “What this also means for the customer is that we can offer a service, for the first time, that is supported worldwide. There is no-one else who can do that.”

Maloney says that though the new partnership means bigger and better things for the customer, FX Africa will work hard to maintain the excellent levels of personal service it has become known for. “We are trying to keep a similar structure as we grow and as the partnership develops. As far as the customer is concerned, they can phone anyone in the company, and receive the help they require. We want all of our staff to be accountable and professional.”

Maloney adds that FX Africa is already operating in seven African locations other than South Africa at the moment and looks forward to further expansion on the continent in the years ahead.

FX Africa is a company with its roots firmly in Africa, having started as a single retail outlet at the Victoria Falls in 1995.

Maloney says he hopes that the partnership will mean FX Africa and Travelex will have a good chance of winning new contracts to operate retail branches at airports. “Travelex is the world’s biggest player in airports by a long shot. Airport locations have the most customer traffic by far,” he says.

Paul Swainson, Travelex Director for Africa

Travelex is the world’s biggest foreign exchange company, serving a customer somewhere in the world every three seconds. Now this will include customers from South Africa for the very first time.

Paul Swainson, Travelex Director for Africa, says, “Travelex has been keen to enter the Southern African retail market for some time. We have been looking for the right partner with the right experience, and with FX Africa, we finally found it.”

He says that the South African market is unique in that it is a “powerhouse in terms of the rest of Africa”, and offers entry to markets with huge growth potential.

At the same time, visitors leaving South Africa are usually going on long-haul trips, and are therefore potentially good customers of retail foreign exchange. Swainson says that what impressed Travelex about FX Africa was that “they’re entrepreneurial, they have a lot of get up an go, and they are at the right time in the evolution of their business.”

Travelex was started by businessman Lloyd Dorfman with a single bureau in central London in 1976, and is now operating more than 700 branches on every continent. The company is still growing.

“The benefits to the customer of the partnership are a global consistency of approach,” says Swainson, and a personal touch. “Our staff are not just cashiers. We are aiming to build a rapport with our customers, to understand their needs and habits, and to provide some information about destinations. We are seeking to build long-term relationships with our clients.”

Swainson says Travelex has four “brand ambassadors” who embody the excellence of the company: tennis ace, John McEnroe, cricket players Adam Gilchrist and Brett Lee, and rugby player Jonny Wilkinson.

“They embody integrity, striving to be the best, and a never-give-up attitude. That is what Travelex is all about.”

Managing Director of FX Africa Foreign Exchange, Darren Jenkins-Ferrett

The transformation of FX Africa into the Travelex Retail Foreign Exchange brand in South Africa is about so much more than just changing the sign above the door, says Darren Jenkins-Ferrett, Managing Director of FX Africa Foreign Exchange.

“It’s a complete mindset change from a traditional banking style operation into proper consumer retail. We will give the South African consumer a new experience in foreign exchange – one that is part retail theatre and part professional consultation. After all, money is a serious business.”

Jenkins-Ferrett believes that customers and staff alike will benefit from the transition as FX Africa raises its game to meet the exacting standards of Travelex and take advantage of their worldwide knowledge base. Since the South African Reserve Bank gave approval, in July, for FX Africa to become the retail business partner with Travelex, it has been a case of “all hands to the pump” as the management of FX Africa took on the mammoth task of launching this global brand into the local market.

Everything has had to be changed before the official launch on 22 August – shop signage, stationery, staff uniforms, training, systems and advertising. However, the most important change, is how the management and staff adapt the way they think about themselves – as part of a successful global family.

Jenkins-Ferrett muses: “I promised the Chairman of Travelex that we would live, breathe and eat the brand. It’s a promise I intend to keep and, in order to achieve that, all of us at FX Africa need to live out the Travelex core values.”

The partnership will become immediately visible through the store rebranding programme which will see FX Africa’s 22 locations in South Africa getting a complete makeover. Securing the Travelex retail brand for FX Africa was quite a coup for the FX Africa team and a departure from Travelex’s normal mode of operation, which is to open their own corporately owned offices in new territories.

“It means that FX Africa has a big responsibility towards upholding the reputation of the Travelex brand. Travelex have invested a lot of trust in us and we are keen to show Travelex that their faith is well founded,” he says.

Although a lot of work has already been done in preparation for the launch, the FX Africa team realise that the real hard work will only start afterwards. The aim is to be the number one retail foreign exchange operator in South Africa. “There are a lot of challenges ahead to achieve our goal, but when I look at the team we have here, I know that we’re equal to the task.”

Lloyd Dorfman, Founder and Chairman of the Travelex Group

Lloyd Dorfman is Founder and Chairman of the Travelex Group. Having briefly sampled the bar and investment banking, he started his own currency exchange business in 1976 from one small shop in central London.

Following the £440m acquisition of Thomas Cook’s Global & Financial Services business in March 2001, the Travelex Group has now become the world’s largest non-bank foreign exchange business.

In 2001 Lloyd Dorfman was the winner of the Consumer Business Category in the UK “Entrepreneur of the Year” awards sponsored by Ernst & Young, Citibank and The Times.

In 2002 he received the British American Chamber of Commerce’s UK Entrepreneurial Award, and the Institute of Economic Affairs’ Free Enterprise Award.

He is a Non-Executive Director of M & C Saatchi plc, a Governor of St Paul’s School, London, a Patron and Deputy Chairman of The Prince’s Trust Development Board, and an Honorary Fellow of St Peter’s College, Oxford.

Lloyd Dorfman was educated at St Paul’s School. He is married with three children and one grandson. He lives in London.