Finance

Exchange rate to Ugandan shillings

If a currency converter is not visible below, you can find the GBP/UGX interbank (wholesale) exchange rate at Google Finance. Google publishes the exchange rate with a 3 minute delay.

British Pound Converter

Charity Finance Group

Whisper was a member of the Charity Finance Group although many of their publications are available online for free and as a small charity we didn’t find much use for them.

Charity Tax Group

The website of the Charity Tax Group can sometimes be useful for tax information although much of the information is available elsewhere, and Whisper’s tax arrangements are usually simple, so membership is not currently recommended.

Reclaiming VAT on exports

If you’re sending donations or other supplies from the UK, Ugandan VAT is often payable at 18% on top of the 20% UK VAT that you already paid for the goods; there seems to be no way for private individuals to reclaim the UK VAT. Some online shops will remove UK VAT from their prices when posting goods directly to countries outside the EU, although many will not post to Uganda. Whisper should be able to buy some items such as medicines and medical equipment free of UK VAT when buying for its own account. Whisper could also register for VAT, which would allow it to reclaim VAT on supplies that it exports from the UK, including donated supplies (see section 5.8 here) but with the administrative disadvantage of having to submit a quarterly VAT return.

Currency Broker

Whisper uses MayfairFX for foreign exchange, and finds them good. They are resellers of Currency Cloud services.

Whisper tried TorFX as a currency broker. Unfortunately they offered us about a 4% spread over interbank, which was worse than Whisper’s bank Barclays; they said they could only get UGX at a significant spread. Most low-cost currency brokers don’t like doing transfers to UGX; we tried World First and VFX unsuccessfully, and TorFX made an exception for Whisper as a UK-registered charity.

Whisper’s UK bank Barclays currently charges a spread over interbank of 2%.

The very low cost service TransferWise now offers UGX transfers.