The Wise story
Wise was launched in 2011 with the vision of making international money transfers cheap, fair, and simple. Today, our multi-currency account helps millions of people and businesses manage their money across the world. Here’s how we got here.
Wise is a global technology company, building the best way to move and manage the world’s money. With Wise Account and Wise Business, people and businesses can hold 40 currencies, move money between countries and spend money abroad. Large companies and banks use Wise technology too, an entirely new network for the world’s money.
One of the world’s fastest growing, profitable tech companies, Wise launched in 2011 and is listed on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker, WISE.
In fiscal year 2024, Wise supported around 12.8 million people and businesses, processing approximately £118.5 billion in cross-border transactions, and saving customers over £1.8 billion.
Our Vision
Like many good stories, this one starts with two friends.
They’re both from Estonia. Taavet, who was the first employee at Skype, lived in London but got paid in euros. Kristo worked for Deloitte, also lived in London, and got paid in pounds. But he had a mortgage in euros back in Estonia.
They both moved their money with their banks — which had expensive fees and bad exchange rates. They knew there had to be a better way. So they put their heads together and invented a beautifully simple workaround.
Our Mission
A better way to move money across borders
Each month, they looked up the mid-market exchange rate. Taavet put his euros into Kristo’s Estonian bank account, and Kristo topped up Taavet’s UK account with his pounds. Both got the currency they needed almost instantly, and neither paid an extra cent on bad exchange rates or unreasonable charges.
There was no waiting, no stress, and no extra cost. ‘There must be others like us…’ they thought. So they started a company, called it TransferWise, and hired a team to build the best way to send money between countries.
As we grew, we realised that people needed more than just money transfers. So we added a multi-currency account, a debit card, and a business account, and changed our name to Wise.
Three things we believe about sending money
Our name may have changed but the heart of what we do is always the same: helping people manage their money internationally more cheaply, quickly, and transparently.
Millions of people and businesses trust us to move their money, saving them bank fees and time. With the Wise account, they hold balances in over 50 currencies, and use our debit card to shop and spend while abroad.
We’ve partnered with banks and companies like Monzo, Bolt, and GoCardless, to bring their customers better international banking. And people like Richard Branson, and PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, among others, have invested in our vision.