Recent from talks
Wise (company)
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Wise (company)
Wise, formerly known as TransferWise, is an English financial technology company focused on global money transfers. Headquartered in London, it was founded by Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus in January 2011. As of 2023, it offers three main products: Wise Account, Wise Business, and Wise Platform.
Wise was cofounded in London by Taavet Hinrikus, one of the first employees of Skype, and Kristo Käärmann, a Deloitte management consultant.
Hinrikus moved from Estonia to London around 2006, when he began experiencing the challenges of international money transfers. He became aware that when sending money between Estonia and the UK, banks would typically deduct at least a 5% fee, and also remarked that most of the charge is hidden in the exchange rate. According to him, banks try hard to make it extremely difficult to understand what the consumer is paying for, and there is no transparency in the market.
In its first year of operation, transactions through Wise amounted to €10 million. In 2012, Wise was named one of "East London's 20 hottest tech startups" by The Guardian, Start-Up of the Week by Wired UK, one of five "start-ups to watch" at Seedcamp's 2012 US Demo Day by TechCrunch, and appeared in Startups.co.uk's list of the top 100 UK start-ups of 2012.
In April 2013, Wise stopped letting users purchase Bitcoin, citing pressure from banking providers.[unreliable source?] Independent comparison site Monito reported that Wise was on average 83% cheaper than the big four UK banks on major currency "routes", but could be up to 90% cheaper in certain specific cases.
In May 2015, Wise was ranked No. 8 on CNBC's 2015 Disruptor 50 list, and in August 2015, the company was named a World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer.
On 8 April 2017, an internal memo from British bank Santander claimed the bank would lose 84% of its revenue from its money transfer business if its charges were the same as Wise. Also in April 2017, the company announced the opening of its APAC hub in Singapore. In 2019, the company announced opening an office in Brussels. In May 2017, the company announced its customers were sending over £1 billion every month using the service, and that the company had turned profitable six years after being founded.
On 21 January 2021, Sky News reported that Wise had appointed Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as joint global coordinators for its planned initial public offering. On 22 February 2021, the company rebranded from TransferWise to Wise. As part of this rebranding, the company also launched a new website domain. The company rebranded to reflect its expanded product offering beyond international money transfer.
Hub AI
Wise (company) AI simulator
(@Wise (company)_simulator)
Wise (company)
Wise, formerly known as TransferWise, is an English financial technology company focused on global money transfers. Headquartered in London, it was founded by Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus in January 2011. As of 2023, it offers three main products: Wise Account, Wise Business, and Wise Platform.
Wise was cofounded in London by Taavet Hinrikus, one of the first employees of Skype, and Kristo Käärmann, a Deloitte management consultant.
Hinrikus moved from Estonia to London around 2006, when he began experiencing the challenges of international money transfers. He became aware that when sending money between Estonia and the UK, banks would typically deduct at least a 5% fee, and also remarked that most of the charge is hidden in the exchange rate. According to him, banks try hard to make it extremely difficult to understand what the consumer is paying for, and there is no transparency in the market.
In its first year of operation, transactions through Wise amounted to €10 million. In 2012, Wise was named one of "East London's 20 hottest tech startups" by The Guardian, Start-Up of the Week by Wired UK, one of five "start-ups to watch" at Seedcamp's 2012 US Demo Day by TechCrunch, and appeared in Startups.co.uk's list of the top 100 UK start-ups of 2012.
In April 2013, Wise stopped letting users purchase Bitcoin, citing pressure from banking providers.[unreliable source?] Independent comparison site Monito reported that Wise was on average 83% cheaper than the big four UK banks on major currency "routes", but could be up to 90% cheaper in certain specific cases.
In May 2015, Wise was ranked No. 8 on CNBC's 2015 Disruptor 50 list, and in August 2015, the company was named a World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer.
On 8 April 2017, an internal memo from British bank Santander claimed the bank would lose 84% of its revenue from its money transfer business if its charges were the same as Wise. Also in April 2017, the company announced the opening of its APAC hub in Singapore. In 2019, the company announced opening an office in Brussels. In May 2017, the company announced its customers were sending over £1 billion every month using the service, and that the company had turned profitable six years after being founded.
On 21 January 2021, Sky News reported that Wise had appointed Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as joint global coordinators for its planned initial public offering. On 22 February 2021, the company rebranded from TransferWise to Wise. As part of this rebranding, the company also launched a new website domain. The company rebranded to reflect its expanded product offering beyond international money transfer.
Recent media