This is the Salamanca king of currencies: from exchanging pesetas for escudos on the Portuguese border to billing 266 million euros

Self-made entrepreneurs are often considered the heroes of any economic story. Isidoro J. Alanís’s story begins in his town of Fuentes de Oñoro, in the province of Salamanca, where his parents ran a business and where, in 1996, he was asked to open a currency exchange office taking advantage of border trade with Portugal. He had just finished his degree in Business Management and Administration. “I was the first employee,” he recalls 28 years later in a video conference from Salamanca, the headquarters of the now multinational Global Exchange. At a time when exchanging escudos and pesetas was common, he soon opened two more offices in Badajoz and Tui (Pontevedra), taking advantage of the border exchanges of La Raya, when mobile phones did not exist, and there were hardly any credit cards. The company grew by first making the leap to Latin America, and from there to non-Spanish-speaking countries such as Morocco. “Now we can get on a plane in Australia and go to Hong Kong, from there to Bahrain, Jordan, Turkey, Europe… we are on all continents,” he says.

Global Exchange, which remains 100% family-owned (shared with his mother, María del Rosario Marcos, and his brothers Juan Antonio, María del Rosario and Carlos) had a turnover of 266 million euros last year, 22% more than in 2022. With a workforce of 2,480 employees, it operates in 68 airports. “We have just opened at Sofia Airport (Bulgaria) and in total we already have 376 offices,” says the businessman. “We are the second largest supplier in airports in the world by volume and the first in terms of the number of airports and countries in which we are present.” Its biggest competition above is the British Travelex, and below it has numerous local money changers in each country.

With 12 million users, the equivalent of 1.3 billion euros passes through their windows every year. Tourists and business travellers come to them looking for a reliable, fast and accessible transaction. “Currency exchange services require a lot of staff to serve 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It is very important that customers do not have to wait, because they have to catch a plane, or they are arriving from a long flight and the last thing they want is to have to spend time being served.” Although the bulk of their turnover comes from airports, they also have around 70 offices in very touristy streets and in some busy hotels.

As in every good story, they have not lacked dramatic moments. The high dependence on flights caused their turnover to plummet during the pandemic. “We were among the biggest victims, because we are not like hotels, we only live off international tourists,” says the businessman. In March 2022, they received 45 million euros from the Sepi rescue fund. “When they granted us the loan, the recovery of tourism was underway. We returned it in June 2023. We signed a [préstamo] syndicated bank last year and we repaid the aid”. Its current debt is 80 million euros, with an EBITDA (operating profit) of 55 million.

Global Exchange has two ways of getting one of its islands installed in airports: through public tenders or through selection processes in which its main rivals usually participate. At the same time, they need the approval of the monetary authorities in each country, because their activity is subject to strict scrutiny on money laundering. “We have infallible control systems to prevent money laundering, it is our obsession. On the other hand, we record all the serial numbers of the banknotes we receive and deliver, we know who has given us a banknote under what circumstances. And that is important for the control system on counterfeiting.”

Unfaithful customers

The main operating costs of companies like yours are the fees they pay to be at the airfields, the staff and the technology. The players in the sector operate in this trinomial, calculating to the millimetre the opportunities to offer better prices, because they know that the client is not loyal to a brand. “Each country is different depending on the costs, the legislation, the competition… there is no rule of three. We charge the exchange rate differential, we do not like to call it commission. There are countries where we apply 5%, others with 15%,” he figures. They say they are more competitive than their peers because they develop their technology from Spain and adapt it to each country.

Among the risks, Alanís smiles, luckily there is no late payment, because all transactions are made immediately. “On the other hand, we have the risk of having our money stolen. We have control systems, but there is always the risk that an employee, as happened to us on a night shift, takes the cash and leaves. All of us who work with money are exposed to this type of situation.”

Global Exchange offers other services, such as VAT refunds or home currency delivery. And after this pandemic setback, the horizon looks very bright. “Tourism is behaving like champagne, it has exploded and we are breaking records. All airports are growing.” They are heading to the Asian market. “They need to know you. It is a question of time, patience and persistence.” Like what a family from a town in Salamanca had to become a global operator.

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