Last week Vancouver startup PeerFX launched its peer-to-peer online foreign exchange service with the promise of better rates. Looks like there on to something big as customers are lining up to use the service and they now have a waiting list 250 long.
PeerFX's introductory rate of 0.35% of the transaction volume is available until the end of May to encourage early adopters. Sign up is free and they're open for both USD to CAD and CAD to USD trades.
If PeerFX sounds vaguely familiar you likely caught a glimpse of founder Florence Leung on CBC Dragon's Den 18 months ago. PeerFX's pitch was one of the few that ended in a serious offer from the Dragons and Leung's team made waves by turning them down after the show.
Since declining the Dragon's offer, Leung has been bootstrapping the business but is now looking for investors. In February PeerFX conducted an investor forum that was attended by both local and international investors and today they hit the new wires with a press release. They're currently focused on business development efforts and hitting milestones which includes closing its first financing round by the third quarter of 2009.
Check out their Changing Exchanging blog where the team writes about startup issues and the odd rant about financial services. They have their first in a series of Check It video tutorials online as well.
PeerFX is an online peer-to-peer currency exchange. By bringing people together to exchange with each other instead of through the banks, we... [more]
Rob Lewis
Rob is the President of Techvibes Media Inc. and Editor-in-Chief of Techvibes.com.
His diverse background includes stints in International Trade Finance, Web Development, and Enterprise Software and he is a graduate of the University of British Columbia, British Columbia Institute of Technology, and Simon Fraser University.
When not blogging on...[more]
