Crown Currency Exchange customers to lose out

Crown Currency Exchange, which was last month placed into administration, is not expected to pay out all the cash its customers lost, since it was not covered by any of the Financial Services Authority compensation schemes.

The company‘s administrators have received around 8,000 claims totalling £16.5 million but it has been revealed that customers are only expected to recoup a “small percentage” of lost funds.

Paul Clark, of administrators MCR, comments: “The value of the transactions typically ranged from £100 to around £20,000. However there are several transactions in excess of £100,000.”

At the time of the collapse, it emerged that Crown owed an estimated £20 million to around 13,000 customers.

The company allowed individuals and business customers to pre-order foreign exchange at a set price up to a year in advance.

The company was one of the UK’s largest foreign exchange websites and was established by husband and wife Peter and Susan Benstead in 2005.

However, the company was affected by the downturn in the travel market and it said it had “experienced a difficult trading environment” over the last year.

Meanwhile, Harold Sorsky, joint administrator from SPW, said they were facing a “very challenging situation that we are having to unravel”.

Mr Sorsky added that it is urging any former customers of Crown to get in touch and “ensure that they complete a proof of debt, which is available on the joint administrators’ websites.”

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