Compliance

To maintain the highest standard of professionalism on the Exchange, all member businesses are thoroughly vetted by our onboarding team before granting them access to the platform.

Newly incorporated or previously dormant member businesses are requested to submit specific documents and have provisional workflow restrictions placed on their accounts in the early days of their membership until trust and credibility is well-established.

How we enforce this policy:

Member vetting

All new members must upload their documents in the ‘Business Profile’ section of the platform. Once they’ve been uploaded, our experienced onboarding and compliance team will use numerous sources and regulatory bodies to verify the information provided accurately. In doing so, we ensure that only accredited individuals are operating on the platform and interacting with other members.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you and your business hold valid and appropriate licenses and insurances whilst operating on the Exchange. Whether they relate to your business, vehicle(s), driver(s), or individual users, any invalid or expired documents means you violate our compliance policy.

The following documents are mandatory:

• Driver Licence (CX and HX Starter packages)
• Appropriate Hire & Reward vehicle insurance for the nature of work undertaken on the Exchange when carrying goods on behalf of another member (Driver or Fleet)
• Goods in Transit insurances with a minimum cover of 5k (Driver or Fleet)
• Operators Licences (For 7.5T vehicles and HX subscriptions)
• 2 x Proofs of Address (both dated within the last three months)
• Goods in Transit with CMR (all European subscriptions)

Please note: It is your responsibility to ensure you have the correct insurance to cover your vehicle's journey. The load poster needs to check and confirm the driver has the right insurance cover before agreeing to the load. Transport Exchange Group ensure our drivers have the correct cover, but it is up to the load poster to check they have the right cover for the job. 

Highly recommended documents:

• Certificate of Incorporation (only required if incorporated)
• Public Liability and Employer’s Liability policies
• Professional Indemnity policies

*Additional documentation may be requested if you wish to advertise specialist services.

Once our compliance team has successfully validated you, it’s your responsibility to keep your documents updated. Failure to do so will result in the following:

• First offence – Warning and account restriction
  If we become aware that you’re operating on the Exchange without valid licenses or insurance documents, we will impose a warning on your account and give you 1 week to resolve this. If, after 1 week, this still hasn’t been resolved and you are continuing to operate without the required documentation, we have the right to restrict your account, and you won’t be able to accept loads.

• Repeated offence – Suspension or membership revocation
  If you fail to update your account with valid credentials after you’ve been given a warning and account restriction, we have the right to revoke your membership due to ongoing non-compliance.

Newly incorporated member businesses

Newly incorporated companies (registered in the last year or an inactive account for a period of time) joining the Exchange have workflow restrictions placed on their account for 6 months. After 6 months, we’ll evaluate whether the member business has been fulfilling their payment terms, operating at a professional standard and demonstrating trustworthiness and credibility amongst the trading community.

To reduce risk across our Exchange, if a member business is newly incorporated (1 year or less), the account will be restricted to payment terms of a maximum of 14 days from invoice and load posting activities to 30 loads maximum per time interval (not per month), for the first 90 days.

The member can request additional loads but will be asked to show either proof of payment for the previous loads posted or that payment has been scheduled. Based on that, we will restore the amount of loads equal to how many have been paid for or cancelled loads during that time. 

We’ll assess risk based on the following evaluation process:

Total number of loads posted VS positive feedback and processed payments (against the initial cap of 30 loads)
For example: 30 (initial loads) + 10 positive feedback ratings + 5 marked as paid = 45 loads at a time. If requested and approved, we can then increase the payment terms from 14 days from invoice to 30 days.

Please keep in mind: Any negative feedback received during this period of restricted account activity will restart the evaluation process.

For this reason, you are highly encouraged to communicate with your carriers or load posters, follow instructions, and encourage them to leave positive feedback.

We also ask that you mark processed payments/invoices as ‘paid’ through our accounting system on the platform. This will not only raise your profile to other members looking to work with trustworthy businesses on the Exchange, but it also saves you time on admin by providing us with bank statements if you need to increase your load posting limit.

After 180 days, we’ll review the account again.

• More than 100 positive feedbacks = load posting restriction lifted.
• Fewer than 100 positive feedbacks (but no negative feedback or complaints raised) = load posting activity will increase to 100 loads at a time with the ability to increase payment terms to 30 days end of the month if requested and approved.

We will then review the account only on request.

Insurance expirations

You must have valid Goods in Transit insurance and Vehicle Insurance (Hire & Reward) as a minimum when transporting loads on the Exchange.  

• First offence – Warning
  We perform unannounced spot checks on accounts, and if a member is found to be operating without the right insurances, we’ll impose a warning on your account and give you one week to upload your documents.

• Repeated offence – Account restriction
  You’ll receive email reminders from Transport Exchange Group reminding you to upload your documents. If these emails are ignored and remain non-compliant, we have the right to restrict your ability to accept loads on the Exchange, and you will only have access to your diary and accounting tools.

Limited companies opening new accounts   

If a member decides to close one limited company and start a new limited company, they must open a new account with us as they are now two separate entities.  

Once the new account is active, the previous account will have to be closed, and all outstanding payments transferred to the new account.  

Members are responsible for any outstanding payments from their previous account. Before opening the new account, you must: 

• Send us a letter of responsibility declaring full accountability for any outstanding payments on the previous account.  
• Provide us with proof of payments upon request