I definitely love using Wise for my business. As a Canadian I can collect USD (which my shops charge in) and hold it for free as opposed to the fees my bank would charge and I don't get hit with conversion fees on every deposit. I can convert it at far better rates for way cheaper than my Canadian bank too. I confronted my major bank in person and they won't match their rates or even come close. I can transfer money from WISE to my Canadian bank for $0.66 and it takes like a day or less with 2 clicks. I also get a USD based credit card for free I can use and not get screwed on fees by conversion or my Canadian bank. Big fan here so far!
Many consumers prefer durbin-exempt cards since they have more favorable terms. Average fee on durbin-exempt cards is 1.41%, and they are 38% of transactions.
Average fee on covered cards is 0.45%, and they are 62% of transactions.
Seems reasonable to me that Wise wants to make a profit on every single transaction. Probably would have issues with abuse from 1% debit cashback cards otherwise.
What do you mean by debit transaction? An international bank transfer? There are many layers of fees that often get charged by banks:
- You don't get the market rate
- There's a percentage fee on the exchange
- There's a fee to send abroad for the sender
- There's a fee to receive from abroad for the receiver
Not all charges necessarily apply but they often enough do. Try it out and you'll see.
I agree. I recently bought a house in Europe and needed to convert USD to Euro for the purchase. I called around trying to find the easiest and cheapest way to convert a large sum and have it ready to transfer out, and Wise ended up being one of the lowest cost solutions. I was also able to set rate targets for the when to convert, etc... Really great product.
I've recently made some larger EUR denominated purchases as well - I ended up just buying the currency through my normal broker (Fidelity), since the rate seemed good and I wanted to use them for the wire transfers later anyway. I don't recall any particular fees. Did I take an L there or is Wise more or less doing something similar?
There may well have been fees, you should check. But if there weren't, 99% of the population in Europe (that's where they started) haven't got a broker. Also once you get the currency there might be fees to make international transfers.
They started off matching people on both sides, at least that's how the story goes. Estonian expats in UK wanted to buy EUR and vice versa.
They're an alternative to high street bank transfers, not a service for semi-professional traders.
Wise spreads are competitive with broker rates (better for most of the larger transactions (including a house purchase) I made with them) and their fees are presented to you in app while you are arranging the transaction.
I also used Wise for a home purchase. The other upside is they give you an IBAN which lets you transfer money anywhere in EU at zero cost. The process is ACH from your US bank to Wise, then convert to Euros, finally transfer IBAN to IBAN. There might be a better way, but it was the least expensive and easiest method I found.
> … hold [USD] for free as opposed to the fees my bank would charge and I don't get hit with conversion fees on every deposit.
Note that, in the U.S. and Canada, Wise accounts aren’t traditional bank accounts but “transfer” [1] accounts, and aren’t really built for holding money. Senders can do chargebacks, for example.
Yeah, I don't hold a lot of money in there if I can help it, just until the rate seems favourable, then I convert it to CAD and send it off to my Canadian bank account for safer keeping as WISE is not FDIC protected.
I lost my wallet in Canada, which included all cash and cards. Wise was the only provider to work with my jail broken iPhone and still incorporate with Apple Pay.
I interviewed with Wise and was definitely inspired after reading about the company and their founders. It helped that Wise had saved me more than once as an American living in Europe. Amazing UI on their site and apps, too.
Whatever you think of Bitcoin, it's not crime and a payment provider shouldn't tell me how I'm allowed to spend my money. Ho wait this is actually what Bitcoin solves! A p2p internet cash system!
Real estate and estocks were the best investments when the US Dollar had no competitors as the world reserve currency.
When the world was on a gold standard, the average person didn't buy stocks and houses to store value for the future. They just earned and held gold. People were able to afford the cost of living with a bit of delayed gratification.
In the 1920s, banks started lending money to stock market speculators and home buyers. We saw the Dow Jones rise 4x in less than 10 years.
This led to inflation. Profits from the stock market could be used to buy things in the real world.
But the profits weren't real... they were built on the lie of fractional reserve banking. Banks weren't lending their own money; it was depositor funds. More money was entering the system.
When profits from the stock market were used to buy goods and services in the real world, prices started increasing. More money was chasing the same number of goods.
The US government had to fix this. There were too many people speculating on stocks. Interest rates went up to slow economic activity and bring prices back to reality.
Investors panicked and started selling their stocks because they couldn't afford the interest payments on the loans they had taken to buy the stocks in the first place.
The DOW dropped ~90% in 3 years. Billions of dollars of wealth disappeared.
But whose money disappeared? Like I said: banks weren't lending their own money. They were lending depositor funds. These were regular, everyday people who kept their life savings in the banking system.
Over the next decade, the US experienced the Great Depression. Businesses closed down. People suffered.
The US government had to find a way to stop the misery, so it took the USA off the gold standard in 1933, with Executive Order 6102 making gold ownership illegal. Banks took all this gold and paid citizens $20.67/ounce for it.
In my opinion, this was a big mistake:
Instead of dealing with the problem from the ground up, the problem was solved from the top down. Instead of dealing with the root cause (fractional reserve banking), the problem was dealt with by making fractional reserve banking EVEN EASIER.
Over the next year, so many dollars were printed that gold had to be repriced from $20.67/ounce to $35/ounce. Today, that same ounce of gold costs over $2,000. The US Dollar has lost 99% of its purchasing power in terms of gold since 1933. It will always trend towards 0.
In terms of USD, the cost of living has also increased significantly over the last 90 years. Inflation is said to be 2-3%/year, but is it really?
The truth is that inflation is theft and governments steal a lot more than they tell us they do. Since 1933, the US government could print as much money as it wanted, and nothing has been able to take this power away.
The price of gold increased from $20.67 to almost $2,000 in 90 years, an increase in price of ~5.2%/year. On top of this, money goes towards stocks and real estate, so inflation is MUCH higher than we're told.
In 2008, #Bitcoin was introduced by an anonymous entity named Satoshi Nakamoto.
Bitcoin lets you save and transact without relying on banks. No more fractional reserve banking.
Bitcoin doesn't devalue because it can't be printed at will. A house that cost 100,000 BTC in 2011 now costs 11 BTC. In terms of USD, housing has at least doubled in price in that time.
Bitcoin has all the favorable characteristics of gold (durable, scarce, salable) AND government-issued currencies (portable, divisible, fungible).
The world is slowly waking up to this. Some countries have been accumulating #BTC for years. Some businesses are starting to accept Bitcoin. Bitcoin is being used as "money" instead of US Dollars by more people every day.
Since Bitcoin has all the characteristics we need money to have, it is digital gold.
We are going to see real estate and stock prices drop in terms of Bitcoin until they're priced in Bitcoin.
With rates like they are, it's worth it to hold money. Family member used them just a couple years ago and they got emails saying they'll have to charge them if they don't move their Euros held there out within 30 days.
Been using wise for years to pay intl freelancers and send money to family. Way less stressful than using PayPal and not limited to certain banks like Zelle is.
What I like about them for forex is that they're publicly traded, so I can take a look and see if they're at risk of disappearing anytime soon. And assume they have some good auditing.
Only takes one horror story to read about a currency exchanger taking your wire and then going bankrupt before wiring you funds back to want to avoid private currency exchangers forever.
My other method in Canada for conversions between US$ and CAD$ is to buy an "inter-listed" stock that trades in both Toronto and New York City. My stock broker will sell me a bank/telecom/whatever in CAD$ in Toronto, and then let me sell it for US$ in NYC. Hedge funds, etc. keep the two stocks in lockstep with exchange rates. Tis called "Norbert's Gambit". Cheaper than Wise (basically $20 flat rate for me and about 0.02% in spread if I take a bit of risk with a real stock).
I suspect this might be possible in Europe if you have access to different markets across the continent.
I believe if you put your money in the recently added interest accruing accounts, it will be FDIC insured. They just expanded those types of accounts from USD to also include EURO and GBP.
Anyone taking bets how long until they completely sell their soul and forget every word of their mission for shareholder profits once the small margins no longer satisfy?
Dread it, run from it, enshittification arrives all the same. Can't trust a public company further than you can throw them these days.
> The contents of this part of the website has been jointly approved by Goldman Sachs International and Morgan Stanley & Co. International plc solely for the purposes of Section 21(2)(b) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (as amended).
If Goldman Sachs approves something then I'm gonna have a bit of a hard time approving of it myself given their track record. And well, Get Started just leads to a page error.
There is an alternative economic argument. Wise have the same product (money transfer) at a fraction of the cost. It could be that all the marking was a complete waste of time.
Due to applicable legal restrictions, electronic versions of these materials are not directed at or accessible by persons located in your jurisdiction. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
All I know is that when I had to accept a wire for quite a lot in USD and convert it to CAD, Wise wanted 0.5%, showed me precisely how the math worked, and held my hand through the whole thing without having to call anyone. Their Web UI was perfect.
Other Forexes needed a phone call which I immediately distrust. All the Canadian banks wanted 0% fee but snuck a 3% fee into the exchange rate.
I don’t care about their mission. I care about complete transparency. I love companies that tell you what they get from the deal. I feel like a party to a business transaction, not a mark to exploit.
So is their entire value add that instead of the fees being hidden they’re now visible? Like is it actually cheaper and if so how were they beating bigger banks? Or was it a VC play to “disrupt” forex by funneling money into a single tech company that could then undercut traditional businesses quickly, gain market share, and then switch to profitability?
Yes it is actually cheaper. I started using them in 2012 after my first normal EUR-GBP bank transfer cost ~3% in fees (compared to market rate) and Transferwise was just 0.5%. Never disappointed. Their debit card which keeps multiple currencies with at most 0.5% for exchange is great too - preferentially uses currency you're paying with, only exchanging if it must. Overall a great product, don't have anything to complain and have been a happy user for more than 11 years. They've saved me at least a thousand bucks, probably more.
None of the above. They are actually cheaper than most alternatives. I believe their "trick" is to maintain accounts in each country such that a cross country remittance doesn't actual involve money movement which saves on fees.
Can't any random international bank propose the same service for cheaper? Or are they already making more money than Wise ever would by taking larger fees?
I heard an interview from Wise where they just talked about all the random things they did to just drive down costs. They know people care mostly about speed and cost, so they focus there. It seems to not really be 1 thing, but a million small optimizations.
They could, but, yes, it's too profitable to charge extra margin to unsophisticated customers.
Maybe one day.
Banks probably charge a lot less to those moving hundreds of millions around. But the people/businesses occasionally moving around $1000-$1m have been getting shafted for an eternity.
Around 8 years ago I was working remotely for an Eurozone country while living in a non-euro country. I used Wise + Revolut to convert all my income and buy an apartment (or part of it). The exchange rate + transfer costs were unbeatable. Revolut was even better but had a yearly cap on 10.000€ or something like this.
53 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadWise claims a debit transaction on a $1000 to $1000USD would cost $15.
That’s an incredibly high rate for a debit txn.
Many consumers prefer durbin-exempt cards since they have more favorable terms. Average fee on durbin-exempt cards is 1.41%, and they are 38% of transactions.
Average fee on covered cards is 0.45%, and they are 62% of transactions.
Seems reasonable to me that Wise wants to make a profit on every single transaction. Probably would have issues with abuse from 1% debit cashback cards otherwise.
Note that, in the U.S. and Canada, Wise accounts aren’t traditional bank accounts but “transfer” [1] accounts, and aren’t really built for holding money. Senders can do chargebacks, for example.
https://wise.com/ca/legal/terms-of-use
[1] I made up the term “transfer”. I’m sure there’s a correct name for these accounts.
Saved my arse 100x over.
Interview experience was great too :)
yeah, until you mention that you are using their service for bitcoin.
The inverse HN theorem: If the vc and woke tech bros like it, then it's worthless.
When the world was on a gold standard, the average person didn't buy stocks and houses to store value for the future. They just earned and held gold. People were able to afford the cost of living with a bit of delayed gratification.
In the 1920s, banks started lending money to stock market speculators and home buyers. We saw the Dow Jones rise 4x in less than 10 years.
This led to inflation. Profits from the stock market could be used to buy things in the real world.
But the profits weren't real... they were built on the lie of fractional reserve banking. Banks weren't lending their own money; it was depositor funds. More money was entering the system.
When profits from the stock market were used to buy goods and services in the real world, prices started increasing. More money was chasing the same number of goods.
The US government had to fix this. There were too many people speculating on stocks. Interest rates went up to slow economic activity and bring prices back to reality.
Investors panicked and started selling their stocks because they couldn't afford the interest payments on the loans they had taken to buy the stocks in the first place.
The DOW dropped ~90% in 3 years. Billions of dollars of wealth disappeared.
But whose money disappeared? Like I said: banks weren't lending their own money. They were lending depositor funds. These were regular, everyday people who kept their life savings in the banking system.
Over the next decade, the US experienced the Great Depression. Businesses closed down. People suffered.
The US government had to find a way to stop the misery, so it took the USA off the gold standard in 1933, with Executive Order 6102 making gold ownership illegal. Banks took all this gold and paid citizens $20.67/ounce for it.
In my opinion, this was a big mistake:
Instead of dealing with the problem from the ground up, the problem was solved from the top down. Instead of dealing with the root cause (fractional reserve banking), the problem was dealt with by making fractional reserve banking EVEN EASIER.
Over the next year, so many dollars were printed that gold had to be repriced from $20.67/ounce to $35/ounce. Today, that same ounce of gold costs over $2,000. The US Dollar has lost 99% of its purchasing power in terms of gold since 1933. It will always trend towards 0.
In terms of USD, the cost of living has also increased significantly over the last 90 years. Inflation is said to be 2-3%/year, but is it really?
The truth is that inflation is theft and governments steal a lot more than they tell us they do. Since 1933, the US government could print as much money as it wanted, and nothing has been able to take this power away.
The price of gold increased from $20.67 to almost $2,000 in 90 years, an increase in price of ~5.2%/year. On top of this, money goes towards stocks and real estate, so inflation is MUCH higher than we're told.
In 2008, #Bitcoin was introduced by an anonymous entity named Satoshi Nakamoto.
Bitcoin lets you save and transact without relying on banks. No more fractional reserve banking.
Bitcoin doesn't devalue because it can't be printed at will. A house that cost 100,000 BTC in 2011 now costs 11 BTC. In terms of USD, housing has at least doubled in price in that time.
Bitcoin has all the favorable characteristics of gold (durable, scarce, salable) AND government-issued currencies (portable, divisible, fungible).
The world is slowly waking up to this. Some countries have been accumulating #BTC for years. Some businesses are starting to accept Bitcoin. Bitcoin is being used as "money" instead of US Dollars by more people every day.
Since Bitcoin has all the characteristics we need money to have, it is digital gold.
We are going to see real estate and stock prices drop in terms of Bitcoin until they're priced in Bitcoin.
https://www.londonstockexchange.com/stock/WISE/wise-plc/comp...
Only takes one horror story to read about a currency exchanger taking your wire and then going bankrupt before wiring you funds back to want to avoid private currency exchangers forever.
My other method in Canada for conversions between US$ and CAD$ is to buy an "inter-listed" stock that trades in both Toronto and New York City. My stock broker will sell me a bank/telecom/whatever in CAD$ in Toronto, and then let me sell it for US$ in NYC. Hedge funds, etc. keep the two stocks in lockstep with exchange rates. Tis called "Norbert's Gambit". Cheaper than Wise (basically $20 flat rate for me and about 0.02% in spread if I take a bit of risk with a real stock).
I suspect this might be possible in Europe if you have access to different markets across the continent.
https://wise.com/us/blog/how-we-work-to-keep-your-money-safe...
https://wise.com/help/articles/50VrYRVwHcsYeKzvWbjf3n/how-ou...
https://wise.com/help/articles/4IusAofIppsIGPcs7sEIXI/how-ou...
Anyone taking bets how long until they completely sell their soul and forget every word of their mission for shareholder profits once the small margins no longer satisfy?
Dread it, run from it, enshittification arrives all the same. Can't trust a public company further than you can throw them these days.
If Goldman Sachs approves something then I'm gonna have a bit of a hard time approving of it myself given their track record. And well, Get Started just leads to a page error.
Nothing sells itself. It's a painful lesson to learn. But one of the most valuable.
Due to applicable legal restrictions, electronic versions of these materials are not directed at or accessible by persons located in your jurisdiction. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
huh
I'm guessing they're forbidden from transacting in some places with currency controls.
Other Forexes needed a phone call which I immediately distrust. All the Canadian banks wanted 0% fee but snuck a 3% fee into the exchange rate.
I don’t care about their mission. I care about complete transparency. I love companies that tell you what they get from the deal. I feel like a party to a business transaction, not a mark to exploit.
Maybe one day.
Banks probably charge a lot less to those moving hundreds of millions around. But the people/businesses occasionally moving around $1000-$1m have been getting shafted for an eternity.