Built a billion euro business. Lost it all in three months. Built the next one from scratch.
An RAF veteran who walked away from a six figure salary, built the largest non resident mortgage broker in Europe, watched it vanish in the crash, and started again with a phone call and a website. £1.7 billion later, he is still not finished.
As featured in
The story
Never wait for the market to tell you what to do next.
1980s to 1999
Six figuresthe salary he handed back
He joined the RAF at 18 and served seven years. Then Lloyds, then Barclays, and years of learning how banks price money and who ends up paying for it.
In 1999 he left a six figure salary at Barclays to go independent. The adviser network he built did not work. He did not go back. He would rather build something than get a job.
Every business he has built began by leaving something most people would have kept.
2001 to 2008
€1bn a yearto nothing in three months
A lawyer mentioned Spain, where thousands of Britons were queuing to buy apartments they did not understand. He flew to Gibraltar, drove down the coast, and by Marbella had decided. He signed nine Spanish banks, worked with the biggest agents on the coast, and did the thing the lawyers hated: told buyers what the loan would really cost.
It grew into the largest non resident mortgage broker in Europe, arranging around a billion euros of lending a year. Then 2008. Within three months every Spanish bank stopped lending to non residents. There was nowhere left to put the clients.
Mortgages were not coming back. People still needed to move money.
2009 to today
£1.7bntraded, from a standing start
He rang the currency dealer he had been sending clients to for three years. “How do you fancy packing in your job?” They went 50/50, bought at the wholesale rate the banks use, and sold to the public for less than the banks, the supermarkets, the Post Office and the airports. Orders came in on day one. For three months he ran it alone, 18 hours a day, no database, no advertising.
The referendum was a six week dip. The pandemic shut the office for a year; he stopped taking orders rather than hold people’s money. The year after was the best on record, and every year since has beaten the last. In 2026 came Travel FX GO, built while working with Visa. He is still not finished.
No branches, no adverts, a name nobody had heard of. Seventeen years later, still beating the banks.
In his words
“A billion to zero in three months. Completely. There was literally nowhere to put the clients.”
“It was a land grab. And it worked.”
“People will always go on holiday. Even if they can’t feed their kids they’ll go on holiday.”
“Where can I remove a click? That was my mantra.”
Ask him about
Five subjects, each earned the hard way.
Where the rate comes from, where the margin hides, and why the airport costs what it costs.
Cards, wallets and cash, and what the app accounts do and do not fix.
A billion euro business gone in 2008. A travel company with no travel in 2020. Both came back.
How an independent beats banks and supermarkets on price, and keeps the customer.
Lloyds and Barclays, then the largest non resident mortgage broker in Europe.
Straight talking
His words, unrehearsed.
On airport exchange rates
“A smallish bureau in Terminal 1 at Heathrow costs you over a million pounds a year. That’s before you put three to seven staff in, or your security. You need to make about £1.4 million just to not lose money. That’s why they charge significant markups.”
On the supermarkets and the Post Office
“That’s not what they do wrong. That’s their strength. Their strength is people’s laziness and their brand. Everybody knows the Post Office, everybody knows Tesco. I have to shout and scream that I exist.”
On app based currency accounts
“There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors on charging. A lot of noise about costs and where they’ll save you money. People don’t understand how the charging structures really work.”
On keeping customers
“Users are not sticky with online banking. Not at all. So my job is to make customers sticky.”
On his biggest mistake
“I wish I’d started focusing on the digital payments side sooner. I set up a sub brand a few years ago and didn’t really focus on it. It was as good as, if not better than, Wise is now. Look at the size of them.”
Press kit
Copy a bio, download a photograph, quote the facts.
Graham Tennant is a British entrepreneur and the founder of Travel FX, the UK independent currency firm that has traded nearly £1.7 billion of foreign currency since 2009.
Graham Tennant is a British entrepreneur who has taken two businesses to a billion scale, and the founder of Travel FX, one of the UK’s longest standing independent travel money firms. His career runs through the RAF, high street banking, lending and currency.
He joined the RAF at 18 and served for seven years before moving into banking at Lloyds and then Barclays. In 1999 he gave up a six figure salary to become an independent financial adviser, and in 2001 moved to Spain to set up a mortgage brokerage for non resident buyers. Working with nine Spanish banks and the largest estate agents on the coast, it grew into what he describes as the largest non resident mortgage brokerage in Europe, arranging around a billion euros of lending a year. In 2008 every Spanish bank stopped lending to non residents within three months and the business went, in his words, from a billion to zero.
In 2009 he co founded Travel FX with foreign exchange dealer Damian George. The model was simple: buy currency at the wholesale rate the banks use, add a small margin, and sell to the public for less than the banks, the supermarkets, the Post Office and the airports. Orders came in on the first day and for three months Graham ran the business by hand, 18 hours a day. Travel FX has since traded nearly £1.7 billion of foreign currency, came through the 2016 referendum and the pandemic, and has recorded its best year every year since travel reopened.
In 2026 Travel FX announced Travel FX GO, a travel money card and wallet it is building while working with Visa. Graham speaks on how currency is really priced, why airport and high street bureaux charge what they do, and what it takes to build a business through two downturns.
FAQ
Graham Tennant is a British entrepreneur and the founder of Travel FX, a UK independent travel money firm founded in 2009. Before Travel FX he served in the RAF, worked at Lloyds and Barclays, and built a non resident mortgage brokerage in Spain that arranged around a billion euros of lending a year before the 2008 crash.
Travel FX is a UK online travel money company registered in July 2009. It buys foreign currency at wholesale rates and sells it to the public for less than the banks, supermarkets, the Post Office and airport bureaux, delivered by Royal Mail. It has traded nearly £1.7 billion of foreign currency to date.
Travel FX GO is a travel money card and wallet that Travel FX is building while working with Visa. It was announced in August 2026 and is in development. Registration is open at travelfx.co.uk/go and everyone on the list hears first.
How foreign currency is really priced and where the charges hide, why airport and high street bureaux cost what they do, cash versus cards abroad, building a company from a standing start after losing one, and running a small independent through the 2008 crash, the 2016 referendum and the pandemic.
Use the form on this page. Say which outlet or show, the format, and the subject. Graham is available for audio, video and written interviews.
Book Graham
Expert commentary, interviews, podcasts and speaking. Seventeen years of pricing currency for the British public, two businesses built to a billion scale, and a story that holds a room.
Available at short notice for comment on the pound, holiday money, airport exchange rates and fintech launches.