UK currency trader stops working with Israel
Caxton, a major British company, ceases to transfer funds to Israel on behalf of UK customers
Jenni Frazer is a freelance journalist
One of Britain’s biggest and most reputable currency transfer companies, Caxton, has abruptly ceased allowing customers to send money to Israel to be exchanged for shekels.
Although the company steadfastly refused to respond to media questions on the issue, one customer told Jewish News he was first told it was because Caxton no longer wanted to trade in a war zone, and subsequently that it had taken “a hard-headed business decision”.
A former Caxton client, who asked to remain anonymous, said that he had been happily dealing with the company for nearly a decade. He has property in Jerusalem, and used the transfer facility to send sterling to Israel to be converted into shekels, so that the funds could be drawn on locally for domestic needs and maintenance.
He said that the arrangement had worked seamlessly and that “it was always efficient, everything was done well with no problems.” Over the years, he said, he had probably transferred “significant sums” to Israel via Caxton.
He had last sent money to Israel some time before 7 October 2023, and more recently used the company for dollar and euro transactions.
But in December 2024 the client said he had approached Caxton to send money to Israel to go into his shekel account with an Israeli bank. “I was told, sorry, sir, we don’t offer that service any more. I said, what’s that about? I wasn’t speaking to my usual account manager, but the person I was dealing with, said something on the lines of ‘we’ve withdrawn from contentious areas, difficult places, withdrawn from trading there — for now’”.
The Caxton staffer said that the company also did not deal with “Nigeria, places like that,” and the client said he was not impressed with such an analogy.
The customer told Jewish News that he had made a number of fruitless attempts to speak to someone more senior at Caxton, only to be told that there was no-one available to talk to him. He was unable to reach his own account manager, Errol Izzet, until just before New Year — but when he did, asked him, given that he had a large amount of sterling still held by Caxton, whether he would be prepared to transfer such funds to Israel as a one-off arrangement.
Izzet, Caxton’s head of private account management, asked for time to consult. On Monday January 13, in an email exchange seen by JN, he told the client: “Caxton no longer see it as commercially viable to send payments to Isreal (sic), due to low volume and demand. We therefore wouldn’t be able to facilitate any payments for you to that destination.”
The angry customer responded: “It is a shame that Caxton has taken a stance that does not smell sweetly in an era of boycotts.”
Jewish News tried unsuccessfully to obtain an explanation from Izzet as to why Caxton had stopped trading with Israel. He confirmed that the company had taken the decision to cease transfers and that all clients had been informed but said he was unable to comment further.
On its website, Caxton, which advertises heavily in the Financial Times, boasts: “Since 2002, we’ve earned the trust of hundreds of thousands with our global payment capabilities, transparent rates and exceptional five-star UK customer service”.
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