Fourex: The new machines offering money for nothing

Then, crucially, Fourex won Virgin Media Business’s Pitch to Rich competition from more than 2,500 entrants in the category for “ground-breaking new ideas, market-disrupters, game-changers and innovations”, following a public vote and a final pitch direct to Sir Richard Branson and panel of judges.

“Crowd-funding tells you your business is going to be a success – that was the start of the momentum,” says Paterson. “Then we won Pitch to Rich and the exposure has been priceless for us. We’re now getting franchise enquiries from all over the world and swatting away investors who a year ago would not let us in the door.”

Currently, a Fourex kiosk can exchange approximately 1,100 notes and 10,000 coins, but that figure is growing all the time. When a coin is inserted that isn’t recognised, it is rejected, but not before the machine grabs all the information and feeds it back to the server. Subject to it passing all checks, that coin will then be accepted at all kiosks the following day.

The technology is so advanced that even worn-down coins or crumpled old notes can be processed. Counterfeit currency can also be identified in milliseconds – Paterson won’t reveal how this is done except to say that “every note and coin has a fingerprint for our technology, so unless the money inserted matches that fingerprint it is rejected.”

As for maintenance, most of the work is done remotely, so Fourex technicians are immediately aware of issues and the downtime will be minimised. Each machine has a security camera, so vandals can be identified.

With contracts with Transport for London and Westfield in place, Fourex aims to have 400 kiosks placed in high-footfall areas across London, ideally, with three machines in the busiest locations to limit queues.

It has designs to roll the machines out nationwide, but you won’t see Fourex machines in airports in the near future, though.

“Never say never, but our logic is that you come back from holiday, maybe once, twice per year and you want to get home, so there’s a good chance you’ll forget to exchange money,” explains Paterson. “We want the cookie jar of coins that builds up at home.”

“Travelex paid £10 million last year just to be in Heathrow,” adds Du Toit. “More people go through Liverpool Street station each day than Heathrow, so why pay airport rentals? We certainly want to push Fourex within the travel industry, though, because that is the front face. Foreigners coming in all go through travel bureaux so that could be a spot for us. Cruise liners, too.”

At the moment, one slight drawback of Fourex for non-English speaking visitors to London is a lack of language options, but these will be added to the system in the next few months.

On-screen advertising is also a possibility for the future, depending on contracts (Fourex’s TfL contract, for instance, won’t allow it).

One concern Branson himself raised about Fourex is that it could lead to reduced in-flight charity donations of unwanted coins. Du Toit points out that just 3% of passengers actually make them, and if anything Fourex is likely to increase charitable donations overall as users can simply choose to give a percentage of each transaction to one or all of their official partner charities – Unicef, The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, Stroke Association UK, Railway Children, London Transport Museum and Ellenor Lions Hospices. “And if there was a natural disaster somewhere,” he adds, “overnight we can punch in a little video and give people the option to donate to that cause.”

So what does the future hold for Fourex? “This year we will bed down the UK, next year we will go further afield, starting with Europe,” says Paterson. “The goal for us is to franchise it around the world. We can manage it all from London, but we want 10,000 machines around the world.”