SMEs lose out on FX due to “systemic transparency issues” – FinTech Glyde claims

Small and medium sized businesses are paying over the odds for foreign exchange trades facing an average of £992 in hidden brokerage fees, according to Glyde, a UK fintech that aims to bring more transparency to the currencies market.

Glyde’s new study analysed 3,463 FX transactions globally over a period of close to three years ending 15 July 2025, across 50 currencies. The average transaction size was £222,000, a common threshold in B2B payments.

The company says the findings point to “systemic transparency issues plaguing the FX industry.”

Their analysis looked at the average percentage markup applied to trades in each currency compared to the prevailing mid-rate, which Glyde dubbed “skim.” This percentage figure was then converted into GBP to better illustrate the cost impact on transactions.

Glyde found that trading the Canadian dollar carried the highest costs, with an average of £1,752 or 2.1% markup charged by third-party brokers. Both the dollar and the South African rand had consistently high hidden fees, putting both into the top five most expensive currencies to trade category.  In Europe, sterling had the highest costs at £1,305 on average while both the Swiss franc and the euro faced “opaque” markups.

The company’s CEO and founder, Ellis Taylor, is a former corporate FX broker who claims to have seen “the dark arts of FX”  (meaning opaque rates, inflated margins and industry compliance flaws) first hand.

“This analysis is about pulling back the curtain and showing businesses exactly what they’re up against. Transparency shouldn’t be optional – it should be the baseline,” Taylor said.

“Every day, SMEs are being quietly short-changed by outdated FX systems. They trust their brokers, but what they’re not seeing is that skim, sometimes thousands of pounds, disappearing from their pockets into those of the brokers,” he added.

In May this year the UK’s FCA warned about hidden FX markups and labelled them poor practice rooted in bad communication.

Glyde calculations:

Average amount (in GBP) skimmed per transaction by third-party brokers.

THE TOP FIVE  CURRENCIES FOR THE BIGGEST FX MARKUPS, BY PERCENTAGE

Currencies hit with the highest average hidden percentage fees from third-party brokers.

THE TOP THREE COSTLIEST EUROPEAN CURRENCIES FOR HIDDEN FX FEES

Average amount (in GBP) skimmed per transaction by third-party brokers.

THE TOP THREE  EUROPEAN CURRENCIES FOR THE BIGGEST FX MARKUPS,BY PERCENTAGE

Currencies hit with the highest average hidden percentage fees from third-party brokers.