LONDON, April 21 /PRNewswire/ -- World First, one of the UK's leading foreign exchange brokers, is delighted to announce it has won the Queen's Award for International Trade.

World First won the award for offering its customers exceptional exchange rates, service and innovative products which have seen its overseas earnings increase six-fold over the last three years.

Jonathan Quin, managing director of World First commented, Winning the Queen's Award for International Trade is an incredible honour. Everyone at World First is very proud of the foreign exchange service we provide and it is our clients' ongoing belief and trust in us that has helped us achieve this major award.

The ethos at World First is simply that the customer comes first. The amount of business that comes through the door from personal recommendations is testament to this.

I would also like to say a special thank you to all World First employees without whom, we would not be the proud winners of such an accolade.

Winning the award also coincides with World First celebrating five years of operations. Originally set up in the basement of Jonathan's house, the company has seen five years of impressive growth and now employs over 70 employees with headquarters in London and international offices in Australia and New Zealand.

Jonathan continues, Our international growth now means we can offer a 24 hour service to our clients during the working week. In the past year we have also introduced foreign currency options to our portfolio of services; we are currently the only broker in the UK to offer this service, for which we are FSA-authorised.

The Queens Awards are presented in three categories and the winners are announced on the Queen's birthday, 21 April.

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Notes for editors:

World First is a currency exchange broker, serving both private and corporate clients. Set up in 2004 by directors Jonathan Quin and Nick Robinson, the company is experiencing very fast growth and now employs over 70 people in three offices (London, UK, Sydney, Australia and Hamilton, New Zealand). It has 20,000 clients and transacted over GBP1 billion in 2008.

World First's corporate clients are generally import or export companies, making regular transfers. World First helps them minimise their exchange rate risk and manage their currency exposure.

Private clients largely use broker services to purchase a property abroad, usually a second home or investment or to emigrate.

World First is also now offering currency options to SMEs and private clients through World First Markets Ltd, which is authorised and regulated in the UK by the FSA. World First is the first and currently only broker to offer currency options which have, until now, been the preserve of very large corporate organisations through their banks.

For more about World First visit: http://www.worldfirst.com/about_us.html

For further information contact: Wendy Casterton t: +44(0)20-7801-1060 e: wendy.casterton@worldfirst.com w: UK/US/Europe: http://www.worldfirst.com Australia: http://www.worldfirst.com.au New Zealand: http://www.worldfirst.net.nz

For further information contact: Wendy Casterton, t: +44(0)20-7801-1060, e: wendy.casterton@worldfirst.com