StoneX Builds a Cross-Sell Culture to Connect Dairy, Payments and Grains Clients

When a chocolate manufacturer hedges its dairy inputs, it rarely considers whether the same counterparty could also cover its cocoa and sugar exposure, let alone handle the cross-border payments required to settle those trades. At StoneX, that kind of joined-up thinking is now a deliberate strategic priority, and the firm's Frankfurt office is well placed to illustrate why. The business case is not complicated: the client relationship already exists, the account is already open, and the cost of adding a second product is a fraction of winning a new client from scratch.

Philip Smith, StoneX Group Chief Executive, took In the Round to Frankfurt for a conversation with Ramon Martul, Europe Chief Executive, Florian Hildebrand, Vice President of Agriculture and Foods, and Jerome de Graaf, Business Development Manager.

Key Themes from the Discussion

• StoneX runs 90% of dairy exchange volume globally, in a market six times the size of grains.
• StoneX payments reaches 180 countries and 140 currencies through a single provider.
• The cross-sell between dairy and payments is already happening, starting with a Polish trading company.

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Dairy Clients Open the First Cross-Sell Window

StoneX's dairy derivatives business covers a market that Hildebrand estimates is six times larger than global grains, yet it remains largely unfamiliar outside food and agriculture. The Frankfurt team works with chocolate producers, bakeries, supermarkets and dairy farmers across seven global offices, creating a cross-sell environment that most single-product competitors cannot match. "On one side we have big chocolate producers, on the other we have farmers. Normally these companies can't trade with each other, but because there is demand for long-term hedging on the buy side, we have the sell side with the same approach. We can match these customers and it's perfect for everybody." A chocolate manufacturer already hedging whole milk powder through StoneX is a natural next step for cocoa and sugar hedging through the same account, and increasingly for physical trading as well.

Payments Reach Extends the StoneX Cross-Sell Bundle

The payments business brings a different but equally compelling argument. De Graaf describes a network spanning 180 countries and 140 currencies, built on corresponding banking relationships and physical presence that competitors cannot quickly replicate. In his view, the operational guarantee matters as much as the price: "With StoneX, they immediately have access to all those markets and the currency, with the guarantee that they're going to get good pricing and that the beneficiary is going to receive these funds in a timely fashion." That capability has already intersected with the commodities side in at least one documented case, a deal with a Polish trading company where commodity and payments services were combined, pointing toward a broader pattern: commodity clients who routinely move money across borders are a natural audience for a service their existing counterparty can already provide.

AI Compression Accelerates the Single Platform Vision

The technology underpinning the cross-sell strategy is developing faster than the firm had anticipated. Smith is direct about the scale of change: "Our general technology project rollout timeline has been completely ripped up because of AI. Something that was nine months is probably taking two weeks." The objective is a single interface through which clients configure their own StoneX experience, accessing dairy, payments and other products from one relationship. He describes where it leads: "In five years’ time our cross-border, cross-jurisdiction, cross-product onboarding is going to allow us to give customers a platform that they can design to reflect themselves." For a firm whose dairy and payments clients already overlap significantly, that platform is less a new product than a more visible door into what StoneX can already do.

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--- Expert: Philip Smith, StoneX Group Chief Executive

--- Expert: Ramon Martul, StoneX Europe Chief Executive

--- Expert: Florian Hildebrand, StoneX Germany, VP Ag and Foods

--- Expert: Jerome de Graaf, StoneX Germany, Business Development Manager

--- Written by Gus Farrow, Senior Manager, StoneX Media