Rupert Lee-Browne: How I changed the FX industry

While on holiday in Italy, Rupert Lee-Browne was shocked at the poor exchange rate offered by travellers' cheques. So he developed a foreign-exchange business that changed the industry.

On a family holiday in Italy, Rupert Lee-Browne was shocked at the poor rate his wife was offered to exchange her travellers' cheques. She then "spent ages looking for somewhere that would accept them". Years later Lee-Browne, now 44, developed a foreign-exchange business that has "changed the industry".

It was in the early 1990s, working as a consultant to a currency firm planning its initial public offering, that he got an insider's glimpse of an "unregulated, shoddy and sales driven" industry. Having amassed a wealth of contacts and with the support of several 'angel investors' (who pledged to back him to the tune of £250,000), he set to work on a business model that would access the wholesale foreign-exchange (FX) market and offer "the best price" to retail customers. His plans were scuppered when "one by one, each for their own individual reasons, the investors pulled out".

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James McKeigue

James graduated from Keele University with a BA (Hons) in English literature and history, and has a certificate in journalism from the NCTJ. James has worked as a freelance journalist in various Latin American countries.He also had a spell at ITV, as welll as wring for Television Business International and covering the European equity markets for the Forbes.com London bureau. James has travelled extensively in emerging markets, reporting for international energy magazines such as Oil and Gas Investor, and institutional publications such as the Commonwealth Business Environment Report. He is currently the managing editor of LatAm INVESTOR, the UK's only Latin American finance magazine.