Keynote Speaker at Signature Awards (Birmingham) 2020

Fintech pioneer Paresh Davdra’s decade of foreign exchange and remittance experience, combined with dynamic entrepreneurialism has seen the growth of his billion pound international payment technology empire, the Rational Group. 

With over $14bn worth of FX traded daily, London is the world’s largest FX trading centre and it is here that Paresh Davdra, aged 24, with friend and colleague Rajesh Agrawal, teamed up their foreign exchange and IT expertise to take advantage of a gap in the money transfer market. In 2005 they set up RationalFX, one of the UK’s fastest growing foreign exchange providers that offers a personalised service for businesses and private individuals to transfer foreign currency at competitive rates.

This was followed 7 years later by the launch of Xendpay, the world’s first Pay What You Want* money transfer service, to democratise the global remittance industry and to help customers manage their overseas payments. The launch of both RationalFX and Xendpay was a reflection of high street banks and private companies that can charge additional fees and may not provide the most cost-effective rates. Both launches show how enterprising and creative the companies are and the vision of its co-founders to disrupt the status quo.  Having been in the IT, FX and payments industry for 15 years, Paresh puts his success down to taking risks, perseverance through the recession and strong family values.

Paresh grew up in Harrow, London with his close-knit family. His father is originally from Uganda but was forced to leave with the rest of the family back in 1972 due to rising political tensions. Paresh’s family arrived in London as migrants with £50 between them and Paresh and his sister were the first to be born in the UK. With the entire family living under one roof, Paresh learnt about family values and ambition – traits that he attributes for his success today.

During his university days, Paresh worked at a brokerage firm and pursued his career there for a year after graduating. It was here that Paresh got his first taste for foreign exchange, where he honed his skills in sales, strategic thinking and an expansive knowledge of the financial markets. After a year, he and Rajesh quit their respective jobs at the same brokerage firm and moved to Brighton. With one phone, one computer and no money, RationalFX was born.

Paresh is an advocate for all things entrepreneurial and encourages those starting out to be brave and tenacious. This is evident in the company culture which he describes as a ‘learning environment with a no revolving door policy’. As well as forecasting outlooks for the FX industry, Paresh is an expert on currency trends, overseas property advice, migration, its effect on the markets and the impact of Brexit on the money transfer industry. Regularly quoted in national newspapers and global newswires, Paresh’s expertise and insight are recognised across sectors and countries.

When asked about competitors, Paresh Davdra explains: “To be honest, forex companies don’t have a USP to compete against each other. I can’t say that our dollars are better than another forex company’s dollars. But why customers come to us is because we’re a trusted player in the game and we provide a good service, and that’s why we have a string of around 180,000 private clients and business customers.”