85% of travel intermediaries say FX cost is a challenge, despite only one in four tracking this cost

 London, UK | 22 October 2026: 

Modulr, the payments automation platform built to scale, has today revealed exclusive research highlighting the hidden cost of FX for travel intermediaries. The research reveals that, while 85% of travel intermediaries say FX cost is a challenge, only 26% track this cost precisely. 88% of respondents roughly estimate that it is more than €300,000 per year.

The research launches alongside Modulr’s new FX solution featuring account-to-account and virtual card currency exchange, so you can convert on demand with transparent, competitive rates as well as issuing virtual cards in your supplier's currency and funding from your primary balance.

Integrated directly into Modulr’s platform, this gives businesses a single place to convert balances, fund cross-currency card payments, and manage multi-currency operations, with no need for separate FX providers.

When fragmented FX becomes an operational problem

For businesses running multi-currency operations, FX has long meant a separate provider, a separate process, and a separate reconciliation trail, ultimately creating risk. Modulr’s new research, surveying 400 finance, treasury, and operations decision-makers at travel intermediaries across the UK and Western Europe, highlights the real cost of this risk. 93% of respondents, for example, say their business has paid to convert the same money twice, and only 5% have processes to stop it.

Only one third (32%) describe their FX as fully integrated, or handled automatically in the platform they use to pay suppliers. Treasury teams are spending more time managing disconnected systems than optimising payments operations. Costs are often hard to predict, and the burden compounds as transaction volume grows.

Modulr’s integrated FX solution addresses these challenges and reduces operational cost by handling conversion inside the same platform used for payments, accounts, and cards, creating a more automated and streamlined process. Rates are transparent, competitive with the mid-market rate, and consistent at weekends with no surcharge. Businesses pay only the exchange rate margin on each conversion, with no fixed or monthly fees.

Melek Pirgon, Chief Product Officer at Modulr, said: “For businesses scaling across currencies, FX can often mean friction, with a separate provider, a separate reconciliation process, and costs that are hard to predict. The research we have launched today highlights this, with just one quarter of businesses tracking the cost of FX despite 85% citing it as a challenge.

That is one of the key problems we are removing with our FX solution, built directly into the same platform our customers already use for automating payments. This means transparent and competitive rates as well as a full audit trail with no new system or stakeholders to manage. I’m excited to see how we build this offering out in the coming months, including offering booking-linked FX protection to ease the FX cost of booking margins for our customers.”

Looking ahead, Modulr will be expanding its FX solution to offer booking-linked FX protection, helping travel businesses secure exchange rates for future supplier payments and manage the impact of booking changes. By connecting hedging with virtual cards, account-to-account payments and reconciliation, the FX component of booking margins is made much more predictable.

To learn more about the hidden cost of FX, and Modulr’s FX solution, visit: https://landing.modulrfinance.com/the-fx-bill-nobody-counts