Wise/ Transferwise thoughts?

Can anyone give some insights on Wise/ Transferwise? How’s the service/customer service? Is it smooth to use? Any insight on valuation, does 9B market cap makes sense?

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I did sign up once but I found the app unintuitive compared to Revolut, so I’ve hardly used it.

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For international payments I find Wise does them faster and easier, but is a bit more expensive. The Revolut bank transfer needs IBAN and BIC and requires address information for the recipient (at least to Turkey). Wise can do it with IBAN alone and delivers in minutes rather than days. I have sometimes found that overseas people do not know their BIC and that makes Revolut difficult to use. Wise also has the advantage that I can provide reference information to alert the recipient what bill I am paying.

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I have been using the Wise app for over 5 years to send money to Brazil. It’s fast and the rates are very low. I never had problems and I never needed to use customer Services. I was invited to buy shares in the company and I will buy them. great company

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If you’re looking to assess if you should buy into Wise after listing, this is probably a good place to start.

5m customers in 2019
7m customers in 2020

36bn of transactions in 2019
67bn of transactions in 2020

They make a bold statement that they save users in aggregate of 1bn a year compared to traditional banks.

177m revenue in 2019
302m revenue in 2020
421m revenue to Mar 2021

10.1m profit in 2019
20.4m profit in 2020
41m profit to Mar 2021

Profitable since 2017.

3.5bn valuation as at May 2020, and they say its currently worth about 5-12bn.

I’m not entirely sure how they work that out, its traditional metrics are still rather high as if its priced for lots of potential growth to come.

Skin in game would be a good metric too. How many shares to the directors have/intend to keep?

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Same here, has been using Wise since 7 years, never had any Problem and transfer of money is done within seconds in 90% of case, sure will invest

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Thats why I hunted out Chrysalis Investment Trust. Holds both Wise and Starling bank, both which I rate their business models.

SMT also have Wise, it’s their 36th position by portfolio weight (0.9%) (Baillie Gifford led the company’s Series D in 2016).

Other high profile investors included Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz.

Valar also led TransferWise’s Series A and Series B financing rounds in January 2013 and April 2014, respectively. Following Valar’s investment, Andreessen Horowitz led TransferWise’s Series C[9] and Baillie Gifford led the company’s Series D in 2016 at a $1.1 billion valuation.

The latest of Wise’ investors: (Crunchbase mentions a total of 37 investors)

image

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/transferwise/company_financials

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@Dougal1984 ,

The Chrysalis Investment Trust holds Wise, since at least 2017, when it was managed by Merian Global Investors, now acquired by Jupiter Asset Management.

Richard Watts and Nick Williamson head up the Chrysalis Investments’ investment team, part of Jupiter Asset Management’s (formerly Merian Global Investors)

I use it often and it’s fast and cheap. I recommend it.

I’ve used Wise for a few years and found it to be about the cheapest solution out there. It has the added advantage of not just doing transfers but allowing you to hold money in multiple currencies. All of these can be accessed through the app and a single debit card. I travel a fair bit for work (not right now obviously) and store money in 3-4 currencies for spending abroad. This is helpful for timing when the best rates are available.

The app isn’t the best and not that intuitive in parts. The customer service is fairly responsive and seem to actually care about customers. I got an email about signing up for some offer when buying shares on the IPO. They have some offers apparently, including free shares, although there were no details given.

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Isn’t the same as Revolut offers? Multi-currency accounts and a single debit card with several currencies transfers & payments. Are Wise FX rates better than Revolut?

I have both, Wise and Revolut for some years, but only used Revolut, because it seems better and with more services.

I’m struggling if I renew my Wise debit card, that’s why I wish to know the Wise advantages vs. Revolut.

Wise plans to offer investment services (starting in 2021), it obtained a license from the FCA last year. Most of news mention ETFs. Also saw stock and interest-bearing accounts, but I think it isn’t officially confirmed.

It will be interesting to see if Wise enter the brokerage world, what will be happening to the other Fintechs in this segment. :wink:

I don’t use Revolut so can’t comment too much on what they do. I have an account found the charges quite high on crypto. I didn’t look at FX rates. I do remember they charge for a physical debit card, which put me off getting one.

I hope Wise does get into stock brokering. The UK choices aren’t that great right now. Cue the abuse from the T212 and Freetrade fan boys.

Both have their merits but neither is perfect. There’s definitely a market for a low cost but fully featured broker. I was happy to transfer my ISA to T212, only to find out they don’t do in specie transfers. Who wants to sell before transferring? Freetrade aren’t much better if you hold a stock they don’t have listed. Rather than add it, they want you to sell it. Again, not ideal. Revolut offers a limited brokerage service, which doesn’t really work for me.

If I had the ability to exchange money and trade share in an ISA and SIPP, all in one place, it would be most welcomed.

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And with a web platform, I hate to invest through mobile apps. For me, mobile apps are good for tracking the investments and as last opportunity to trade when out of a computer.

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A bit off-topic, when Wise meets Revolut and Robinhood, one of Wise’s co-founders is one of first seed investors:

Founded by an ex-TransferWise duo with a team of former Revolut, Robinhood & Pipedrive employees — London and Tallinn-based fintech Lightyear is a new investment platform for Europe boasting itself as commission-free platform, backed by some big names in the fintech industry.

Founded in the summer of 2020 and set to start rolling out in Q3 2021, Lightyear marries multi-currency accounts with unlimited access to global markets so customers can invest freely without hidden fees or charges.

Uau, a broker with multi-currency accounts, who would imagine that? :wink:

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@RLX There is still a 0.35% FX fee, imagine what people on here would think of that!

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At first I also thought the same as you. But in FAQ/Help section mentions this (see the bold section) : :wink:

Investing on Lightyear is truly commission-free. We use the live interbank rate to convert your money, and you’ll get £3,000 (or equivalent $/€) free of any FX charges, every month. Exceeding that, there’ll be a small 0.35% fee to convert money.

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Yeah, Wise is great, been using them for years for overseas travel and also transferring money to Trading212 in dollars (my account is USD).
Very happy with Wise.

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It would be very interesting, I hope they do come up with a good service, and not something like Revolut’s.

I like the company as a business and I’ve been using it for international transfers. They are not the cheapest, but it’s all transparent. Can’t think of many fintech (other than Wise and T212) that are profitable. I’d love to see them compete.

Wise also focuses on the b2b side, not just retail. For example, they will be powering Monzo’s international transfers.

Wise works with N26 (German fintech bank) in their foreign exchange transfers.

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