Wise: Key Facts and Figures 2022 [AU]
Since its launch in 2011, Wise (formerly TransferWise) has revolutionised the world of international finance, with low cost international payments and smart multi-currency accounts. Both personal and business customers can benefit from Wise’s services, including currency exchange which uses the real exchange rate, and instant international payments.
This article looks at Wise statistics and facts, including:
- Top Wise statistics
- Wise company stats
- Wise funding and investment stats
- Wise marketplace stats
- Wise service stats
- Wise website stats
- Wise product stats
- Wise business and platform stats
- Wise reviews
Let’s dive right in.
Key Wise statistics
- Wise (formerly TransferWise) was founded in 2011 with a mission to improve cross border transactions, with low, transparent costs which come down over time
- Today, Wise is listed on the London Stock Exchange, with 13 million+ customers and over 3,000 employees – Wise has been available in Australia since 2016
- Wise customers can open multi-currency accounts to hold and exchange 50+ currencies, send payments to 80+ countries, and get paid like a local in 10 currencies
- All Wise currency exchange uses the real mid-market exchange rate with no markup and no hidden fees – that can be 8x cheaper than regular Australian banks
- Average Wise customer price for international payments is 0.6% – often among the best, if not the best, in comparisons, with savings of up to 3x for personal customers compared to traditional banks
- Wise business customers can save up to 6 x compared to using a bank, and 19x compared to using PayPal
- Wise customers save a total of 3 million GBP a day compared to using a bank for their international payments
- 49% of Wise transfers are instant, 80%+ arrive within 24 hours
- Wise holds an Australian Financial Services licence (AFSL) and is authorised and regulated by authorities around the world, including the FCA in the UK, and the National Bank of Belgium in the EEA
Wise – company stats
- Wise was launched as TransferWise in 2011 with a vision of making international money transfers cheap, fair and simple (Wise)
- Founded by friends Taavet Hinrikusand Kristo Käärmann to cut their own currency exchange costs (Wise)
- Prior to launching Wise,Taavet Hinrikus was the first employee at Skype, and Kristo Käärmann was formerly a management consultant working with banks and insurers (Wise)
- TransferWise rebranded as Wise in February 2021 to reflect the broadening nature of their services (Wise)
- Wise has over 3,000 employees, including current CEO Kristo Käärmann (Wise)
- Headquartered in London, with 24 offices around the world – Wise has been available in Australia since 2016 (Wise, Crunchbase)
- Wise Australia Pty Ltd holds an Australian Financial Services licence (AFSL) and is a Purchased Payment Facility (PPF) provider authorised by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) (Wise)
- In addition, Wise is authorised and regulated by authorities around the world, including the FCA in the UK, the National Bank of Belgium in the EEA, and MAS in SIngapore (Wise)
Funding and investment stats
- Wise has raised a total of $1.3 billion funding to date (Crunchbase)
- The most recent Wise funding round in May 2021 attracting $160 million, led by Silicon Valley Bank UK (Crunchbase)
- Wise has 38 investors including Silicon Valley Bank UK and Fidelity (Crunchbase)
- Wise was listed on the London Stock Exchange on 7 July 2021 with the stock ticker WISE or LSE:WISE (Wise)
Marketplace stats
- Wise is listed in recently published research as a key player in the global digital remittance market (Facts and Factors Global Remittance Report)
- Research estimates the global digital remittance market to be worth $15.27 billion in 2021, with projected growth to $36.54 billion by 2028 (Facts and Factors Global Remittance Report)
- 45% of international payments are processed through specialist money transfer services rather than banks (Facts and Factors Global Remittance Report)
- Personal customers trust Wise with moving 1 GBP in every 40 GBP of the 2 trillion GBP personal cross border volumes processed in 2020 (c2.5% of the market – source Edgar, Dunn & Company January 2021)
- 76% of customers on average would recommend Wise to a friend (Wise)
- 67% customers find Wise via Word of Mouth (Wise)
Service stats
- Over 13 million customers use Wise to move more than 6 billion GBP a month, saving a total of 3 million GBP a day compared to using a bank (Wise)
- In Q3 FY 2022, 4 million customers used Wise to move over 20 billion GBP, 38% growth on Q3 FY2021 and 15% growth on Q2 FY2021 (Wise)
- As of Q1 2022, 49% of transfers are instant, an improvement on Q3 FY2022, when 45% of transfers were instant (Wise)
- Wise customer price is now 0.60% on average, 9bps lower than Q3 FY2021 (Wise)
Website stats
- There are 35.8 million visits to the Wise website every month (Similarweb)
- Website visitor top countries are the UK (15%) and the US (9%). 4% of Wise website visits originate in Australia (Similarweb)
- Over 50% of customers using the Wise desktop site are aged under 35 – the largest group are aged 25 – 34 (32%) (Similarweb)
Product stats
- Wise multi-currency accounts can hold and exchange 53 currencies (Wise)
- All Wise currency exchange uses the real mid-market exchange rate with no markup and no hidden fees – that can be 8x cheaper than regular Australian banks (Wise)
- Low cost international payments from Wise available to 80+ countries (Wise)
- Wise account holders get bank details for 10 currencies, to get paid like a local from 30+ countries International debit cards from Wise can be used in 200+ countries, and 2.3 million ATMs (Wise)
- More than 2 million Wise debit cards have been issued since 2018 (Wise)
- 3.7 billion GBP in current deposits in Wise accounts at 31 March 2021 (Wise)
- The Wise website is available in 15 languages, with multi-lingual support 24/7 (Wise)
Wise – business and platform stats
- In Q3 FY2022, Wise had 250,000 active business customers (Wise)
- The Wise platform allows banks like Monzo and Stanford Federal Credit Union, and enterprises like Google Pay and Xero to integrate into the Wise infrastructure, giving their customers cheaper, faster payments and account features (Wise)
- Wise Platform is live with over 20 banks in 11 countries across 4 continents,11 enterprises and 12 distribution partners (Wise)
Wise – reviews
- Excellent rating on Trustpilot with 4.6 out of 5 stars, with 156,000+ reviews listed (Trustpilot)
- Apple App store rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars (App store)
- Google Play rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars (Google Play)
- Research shows Wise can be 8x cheaper than banks for personal customers (Wise)
- Businesses with the Wise business account may be able to transact 6x cheaper compared to banks, and 19x cheaper than PayPal (Wise)
Sources
- https://wise.com/us/about/our-story
- https://www.wise.jobs/
- https://wise.com/help/articles/2932693/how-is-wise-regulated-in-each-country
- https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/transferwise
- https://www.crunchbase.com/search/principal.investors/field/organizations/num_investors/transferwise
- https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2022/03/24/2409580/0/en/Global-Demand-of-Digital-Remittance-Market-Size-Share-to-Grow-at-a-CAGR-of-14-6-Expected-to-Hit-USD-36-54-Billion-Mark-by-2028-Industry-Trends-Forecast-Report-by-Facts-Factors.html
- https://www.wise.jobs/what-we-do/our-story/
- https://wise.com/gb/blog/wise-q3-fy22-trading-update
- https://wise.com/gb/blog/mission-update-q1-2022-speed
- https://www.similarweb.com/website/transferwise.com/#traffic
- https://wise.com/us/
- https://www.trustpilot.com/review/wise.com
- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wise-ex-transferwise/id612261027
- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.transferwise.android&hl=en_SG&gl=US
