FAQs:
Using your new World Account
General World Account questions
Receiving accounts allow your business to receive payments from marketplaces and businesses globally. This means you'll be able to receive funds into your World Account via bank transfer.
Your currency account is the pooled balance of all your receiving accounts. For example, if you receive 100 GBP into one receiving account and 100 GBP into another, your total GBP currency account balance will be 200 GBP.
Payee (beneficiary): the individual or party receiving the payment.
Payer: the individual or party making the payment.
Yes, all of the historical information will be available in the new portal. Please take a look at our user guide for more support.
If you held a Corporate Account on our old platform, you'll find your historical statements on the new World Account portal. You'll also be able to see your trade history and payment history, these are available to download.
If you held a World Account on the old platform, you'll be able to see your payment history, which can also be downloaded.
We currently support the world’s major currencies:
GBP, USD, EUR, AUD, JPY, NZD, SGD, HKD, CNH, CAD, PLN, CZK, THB, DKK, MXN, AED, SAR, CHF, SEK, NOK, ZAR, RON, ILS, BGN, IDR, PKR, VND, MYR, PHP, HUF, BHD, BWP, KES, LKR, MAD, MUR, and TRY.
You can open currency accounts and collect funds in the following currencies:
GBP, USD, EUR, AUD, JPY, NZD, SGD, HKD, CNH, CAD, PLN, AED and CHF. Our PLN, AED, SEK and CHF currency accounts are non-domiciled.
Please note: that due to current sanctions, you are not able to access RUB.
Yes, you can continue to use the Authy app to help you sign in to your new World Account.
Please note: when using the Authy app, you must now use the 'World Account' tab to generate a code rather than the 'WorldFirst' tab you would have used previously.
There are a number of reasons why we might need to close your WorldFirst account. Whilst we can’t disclose the specific reasons for regulatory reasons, please note that the following factors could have any impact:
When applying for your account, we may require you to provide us with additional information and documents from time to time to provide information that allows us to:
- verify the source of the funds, including but not limited to invoices for services delivered for which you are being paid
- verify payment confirmation from the entity sending the funds
Failure to provide such requested information may result in us denying your use of the World Account. All information you provide us must be accurate and complete. If we cannot verify that this information is accurate, we may deny your use of the World Account, or terminate your use of the World Account.
- If you don't use your World Account for a period of 12 months or more, we may suspend or close your account
- We may also require you to provide additional documentation and information that we may reasonably request to assist us in meeting our Compliance Obligations and you may need to re-apply to open a World Account
- There are transactions on your account that we can’t complete
Please note: no account is closed until you receive email confirmation back from us. We reserve the right to close accounts that have not been used for an extended period.
Questions about payments
You might not see all your payees available to pay when you select 'Pay' because your payees have now been separated between:
- Third-party payees
- Own account payees
Your own account payees will be available to you to pay by clicking 'Withdraw'.
Any third-party payees will be available to you to pay by clicking 'Pay'.
You would only select 'Withdraw' when you want to release funds from your World Account to an external bank account held in your name/your company name.
You would only select 'Pay' in order to pay any of your third-party payees.
If you had any scheduled automated transfers set up, you'll now need to set these up again on your new World Account portal.
For further support, please take a look at our dedicated user guides:
Managing FX deals
Selecting 'Scheduled FX' when booking a payment means that the FX rate used to convert your funds into payment currency won't be confirmed until you have sufficient funds in your World Account on your desired payment date.
The FX rate confirmed for 'Scheduled FX' will be the live rate as of the time of confirmation.
Selecting 'Fixed FX' means that you lock in a rate at the time of booking your payment. At this point, you're contractually obliged to fund and complete your payment. The FX rate for 'Fixed FX' will be the live rate at the time you created the payment.
You can use 'Book an FX trade' to lock in your rate at the point of booking and settling funds at a later stage.
When you book an FX trade, you'll be contractually obliged to settle this trade, so you'll need time to ensure you hold a sufficient balance on your World Account on your desired settlement date. This is to avoid any cancellations and subsequent fees.
Yes, if you had any existing trades which had a value date beyond the date you were moved over to the new World Account portal, they will still be available to you.
You'll be able to view, manage and utilise your open trades by navigating to 'Transaction Management' under 'Payments' on the dashboard.
To make a drawdown from an existing forward contract, navigate to 'Transaction Management' under 'Payments' and find the forward you wish to drawdown from.
Select 'Add payment' on the right-hand side of the screen.
For more support, take a look at our user guide:
Multi-user accounts
Xero
You'll need to reconnect your World Account to Xero following the two steps below:
- Connect your WorldFirst user account to your Xero user account (this requires your Xero username and password - please continue reading for further details)
- Connect your WorldFirst currency accounts to your Xero bank accounts
You won't lose any transaction data. All transactions completed on the new World Account will be automatically shared to Xero
Please note that accounts switched from our old to new World Account portal will see two migration transactions under WorldFirst statements and Xero:
- A 'subtract account balance' transaction applied to your new World Account. This will be automatically shared to Xero.
- An 'add account balance' transaction applied to your new World Account. This will only be automatically added when you manually complete re-connection steps 1 and 2 outlined above.
The two migration transactions allow us to move your account balance from the old World Account platform to the new one. This means that once you've reconnected your account, they will cancel each other out to maintain your balance within Xero.