Foreign currency purchase and B2B international payments

Buying Foreign Currency for Companies: Optimize Your Cross-Border Flows

Clock icon Read time: 8 minutes | Published: April 24, 2026

By Brice DELHOME

Swiss Business & SME Guide Company Creation & Management
Finance & Currency Expertise Rates & Forecasts

Executive Summary

Purchasing foreign currency is a critical component for companies operating internationally (import/export, foreign subsidiaries, supplier payments). However, traditional banking processes generate massive capital losses linked to opaque exchange rate margins (spreads) and correspondent fees (SWIFT network). Optimized management is based on two pillars: the use of specialized financial infrastructures allowing transparent pricing based on the interbank rate, and simplified management via dedicated platforms for account-to-account transfers, thus ensuring cash preservation.

The Financial Challenges of B2B Foreign Currency Purchases

Whether it's a Swiss SME needing to pay suppliers in the Eurozone, or an international company sourcing in US dollars, acquiring foreign exchange is not just a simple monetary conversion. It is a financial process that, when poorly managed, directly burdens the company's net margin.

The Problem with Exchange Rate Margins (Spread)

The majority of companies tacitly delegate the conversion of their funds to their historical bank. However, the exchange rate applied by your banking institution almost always includes a hidden margin. The difference between the interbank rate (the market rate) and the client rate constitutes this "spread".

On average, this banking markup varies between 1.5% and 2.5% of the transactional volume. On an annual purchase of 2 million francs, a company can thus lose between 30,000 and 50,000 CHF in pure friction costs, an expense often buried in the overall accounting under "financial fees".

International Transfers and SWIFT Opacity

Besides the exchange rate, the channel used to route the funds represents the second area of financial loss. Classic international transfers rely on the SWIFT network, requiring the intervention of correspondent banks. These banks charge unpredictable intermediation fees (known as "lifting fees"), making it impossible to accurately guarantee the final amount credited to the beneficiary's account.

Impact on supplier relations: If a transfer is initiated in "SHA" mode (shared costs) and a correspondent bank deducts 30 CHF along the way, your supplier will not receive the full invoice amount, which can lead to time-consuming commercial disputes.

Account-to-Account Transfers: Securing Your Cash Flow

An effective strategy for companies with multiple entities or multi-currency accounts is the account-to-account transfer. This mechanism is used in two main scenarios:

  • Currency Provisioning: The Swiss company transfers CHF from its main account to a specialized platform, which transparently converts the funds and instantly transfers them to the company's EUR (or USD) account, held at another bank.
  • Revenue Repatriation: A company billing abroad receives foreign currency in a local account, and periodically organizes a repatriation to its base currency (CHF) without suffering the exchange rate penalties of the receiving bank.

Account-to-account transfers via a financial service provider (Fintech) allow you to bypass the pricing opacity of traditional banks, giving you full control over the execution of the currency exchange.

Centralized Management and Secure Platform

Optimizing exchange rates must be accompanied by operational simplification. Growing companies need visibility, security, and speed in the execution of their international payments.

To address this issue, Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) turn to solutions offering intuitive and centralized interfaces. Rather than multiplying expensive bank connections, they prefer a single access point for all their foreign exchange and transfer operations.

The ibani Solution: Transparency and Performance

As a regulated Swiss financial intermediary, ibani.com provides a B2B infrastructure designed to specifically solve the friction points related to international payments. Unlike opaque models, we clearly separate the market rate from our remuneration. By integrating our services into your treasury processes, you benefit from:

  • Transparent Pricing: ibani bases its rates on the real-time interbank rate, plus a minimal, clear margin known in advance.
  • Sliding Scale Commissions: A cost structure that adapts to your institutional volumes (down to 0.4% depending on the amounts processed).
  • Local Routing (SEPA/SIC): ibani uses local clearing networks to distribute your currencies, almost entirely eliminating the need to use the expensive SWIFT network.
  • User-Friendly Platform: A simple online interface to manage your beneficiaries, track your transfers, and initiate your account-to-account transfers in just a few clicks.

Net Margin Simulator

Estimate your annual savings by centralizing your FX flows with ibani (comparison based on an average observed bank margin of 2%).

100,000 CHF
Classic Bank Fees (~2%) 24,000 CHF / year
Net Savings with ibani ~ 19,200 CHF / year
SELLEUR xxx
xxx BUYEUR
  • Our transfer fees: CHF 0
  • Our exchange margin: 0.50%
  • Final exchange rate: 1.1636
  • You'll save on average maintenant
Discover ibani Pricing for Companies

Frequently Asked Questions (B2B FX)

When purchasing foreign currency (e.g., CHF to EUR or USD), traditional banks apply an opaque markup on the interbank exchange rate, called the "spread". In addition to this, there are often fixed issuance fees and commissions charged by correspondent banks (SWIFT fees), which significantly deplete the company's cash flow before the funds even reach the beneficiary.

Account-to-account transfers allow a company to transfer funds from its domestic account (e.g., in CHF) to its own foreign currency account (e.g., in EUR) held at another institution, or vice versa. Using a specialist like ibani to bridge these two accounts allows you to apply a transparent exchange rate based on the institutional market, without suffering the unfavorable margins of the sending or receiving bank.

Companies can break free from traditional banking constraints by using infrastructures dedicated to B2B flows. By initiating their transfers from a specialized platform, they pay their international suppliers with a transparent margin known in advance, and in a totally secure manner.