The world has changed quite a bit in recent decades, especially the way services are delivered. For Lex Foris, this is nothing new. We have been fully digitised and paperless since 2006, and 80% of our services are delivered digitally since 2010.
The internal organisation of the firm has also changed. In 2019, 20% of our staff were already working online from home. Today it is almost 100%. In December 2020 we reduced the total area of office space.
This ‘digital’ trend has accelerated in the last two years, and we now see many service providers following us.
In our intention to remain a leader, further ambitious adjustments are on the agenda for 2022.
Banks
One of the adjustments this year has to do with the banks we work with. You may remember the articles where we reported on all sorts of problems clients had with Spanish banks, including blocked accounts and excessive information-hunger. In those articles, we recommended considering payment services from so-called neo-banks that operate withing the SEPA zone.
SEPA stands for Single Euro Payments Area: one European payment market. The aim of SEPA is that everyone can pay throughout Europe, across the border. -Therefore, just as quickly, easily, and safely as in your own country. This is the ultimate consequence of the unification of Europe. The SEPA agreement makes Europe a single payment area. It therefore no longer matters whether the bank has its headquarters in Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, or Lithuania.
As a firm, we have also experienced huge banking problems in 2021. Transfers to clients that were blocked for weeks without reason, non-agreed bank charges, long processing times and a uncomprehensive verification procedure are just a few examples. For this reason, we took that step ourselves and now work with Wise bank and Revolut bank, originally British initiatives which, due to Brexit, now also have Belgium and Lithuania as their home bases for banking within the SEPA zone. These banks are just as safe as traditional banks, but they are less expensive and not as old fashioned. For clients it means we can now accept other currencies like Pounds Stirling instead of Euros.
Structure
Since our employees almost all work from home, this offers the possibility of searching for candidates throughout Europe. For this reason, Lex Foris has opened branches in the UK and The Netherlands over the past year. This way, each country has an office covered by its national rules, making it easier to find new employees.
Consequently, we hope that these new employees will also be able to have easier personal contact with clients in cases where this is desirable. All partners and employees will continue to work under the same name, Lex Foris.
Future
There are more exciting things in the pipeline in the coming months that we will, of course, keep you informed about. Keep an eye on this site. Thank you for your trust in Lex Foris.
Roeland van Passel Maria Dolores Garcia Santos
Ilonka Dekker Isabel Riquelme Alacid
Selena Escandell Beutick Petra Koeman
Lucia Guillen Molina Maria Camila Lizarazo Gonzalez
Arsenia Turpin Fernandez Jose Manuel Jimenez Gomez
and all other collaborators