Wise Review (Transferwise): A smarter way to transfer money abroad

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Since Wise was founded way back in 2011 I've followed their progress. There are many firms that shout loudly about wanting to disrupt an industry. But most of the time, it is marketing hyperbole. However, in Wise's case they have actually disrupted how we send money around the world. They've done this by doing two things, making it cheap and making it easy.
Richard Berry
Richard Berry
Good Money Guide Founder

Wise Customer Reviews

4.5

217 Good Money Guide reviewers have given this provider an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 based on their genuine experience.

Excellent70%
Very good18%
Average8%
Poor0%
Terrible4%

Leave a review and tell us what you think to help others make more informed financial decisions.

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The money has never reached the recipient

8th December 2024

I made a transfer to a Canadian company 1.5 months ago, and the funds have not yet been received. After multiple emails, Wise insists that the money was paid out. However, I have received an official statement from the recipient’s bank confirming that the money has not been received. Wise’s complaints department sent me a final letter stating that, according to their records, the funds were paid out.

Additionally, Wise states the following in their Customer Agreement regarding their responsibility for losses:

Quote from Wise’s Terms:

“Our Customer Agreement also explains our responsibility for losses in Section 29:

29.1 Unforeseeable loss or damage. We are not responsible for any loss or damage that is not foreseeable. Loss or damage is foreseeable if either it is obvious that it will happen or if, at the time the contract was made, both we and you knew it might happen, for example, if you discussed it with us during your sign-up process.

29.9 We are not liable for things which are outside of our control. We (and our affiliates) cannot be liable for our inability to deliver or delay because of things which are outside our control.”

Despite these terms, Wise has not been able to resolve this issue, and the money has still not been delivered as promised.

find it irresponsible that Wise does not conduct any investigations into the matter. The Canadian bank associated with Wise is unable to provide any information, as everything goes through Wise. Wise must be capable of tracking the funds and providing precise details about where exactly the money is, who received it, and to which bank account it was deposited.

I would advise everyone to be cautious when transferring large sums of money with Wise. They are not capable of executing a secure money transfer!

Nina
Verified

Beware: Wise’s Unethical Policies and Unresponsive Support Cost My Business

14th November 2024

I am sharing my experience with Wise to warn fellow business owners about the serious risks and unacceptable practices you may encounter if you choose to use their services.

My business, is a legally registered travel agency in the UK, and I relied on Wise to manage payments for my photography and cultural tours, primarily in South America. Things took a turn for the worse when Wise froze my account and accused my business of violating their Acceptable Use Policy, citing my once-a-year humanitarian trip to Cuba.

Despite explaining multiple times that:

No Cuba-related transactions were ever processed through Wise (I use a separate European bank for this purpose),

My tours comply with the “Support for Cuban People” category authorized by OFAC, designed to help Cuban citizens outside state control,

Wise completely ignored the facts. Their customer support team responded with automated messages, refused to engage in any meaningful dialogue, and even lied, claiming they didn’t monitor my emails—despite clear evidence to the contrary. After days of chasing them and providing thorough documentation, they chose to close my account without justification.

The Consequences:

Wise left my business in chaos, disrupting essential transactions and client arrangements.

Their rigid policies align with sanctions widely condemned by the global community, and in doing so, they indirectly support humanitarian suffering.

The Bottom Line:

Wise is unreliable, unresponsive, and unethical. If your business has any complexity or humanitarian focus, beware: Wise will shut you down without notice or explanation, and customer support will abandon you. Their actions have serious real-world consequences.

Avoid Wise if you value your business stability or require ethical and accountable financial services. There are far better alternatives out there that won’t put your livelihood at risk Beware: Wise’s Unethical Policies and Unresponsive Support Cost My Business

Tristan

Great service

26th October 2024

Cost effective and efficient

Judy Anne MacArthur Clark

Ex pat on tour

26th October 2024

Best transfer rate by far for low value (£1000 to £100,000), low cost – pound to euro exchange rates; I wouldn’t use anyone else.

Adrian Holden

Simplicity

25th October 2024

It is so simple to use,the rates are great and takes seconds to reach my destination

Jackie etheridge

Okay value for money

25th October 2024

Better than competitors

HS

There for the long haul.

25th October 2024

I have found Wise reliable and very solid, with many international transactions completing in seconds!

Bernard Whiting

One of the better ones

19th October 2024

If only they were as cheap as they used to be

Paul
Verified

Misapplication of Sanction Rules

14th August 2024

This financial service banned my transfer to a person residing in the city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Their rationale was that, in their opinion, Zaporizhzhia is under sanctions. However, this is inaccurate. While the Zaporizhzhia oblast is partially occupied and the occupied areas are under sanctions, the city of Zaporizhzhia remains under governmental control. They have conflated these distinct situations. Despite providing them with numerous resources to clarify this, they have not reviewed them and now intend to restrict my account. This demonstrates a significant level of incompetence in the current political and legal situation.

Tim Polomani
Verified

5/5

2nd July 2024
Avery Wong

Wise has always been easy…

28th June 2024

Wise has always been easy to use to transfer funds and the rates are competitive. Once the money hits their account it is seamlessly sent to the recipient.

Maria Osmane

prompt

27th June 2024

prompt

freddy magdalani

Easy to use, fees are…

27th June 2024

Easy to use, fees are too high

Karen Blunt

OK does the job

27th June 2024

OK does the job

Caroline Yates

Good app and process but…

27th June 2024

Good app and process but there are a lot of layers of charges which make a transfer seem complicated

Stephen William Lacy

told me one thing delivered…

26th June 2024

told me one thing delivered another – service not usable

Alan Harrison

Simple process to deposit funds,…

26th June 2024

Simple process to deposit funds, move to a variety of other currencies and spend or transfer to banks in other currencies. Very low charges and money held in Wise account can be invested for you. Excellent bank Facility all round.

Alan Keith Brown

Very reasonable rates and quick…

26th June 2024

Very reasonable rates and quick transfer of funds

Janelle O’Keeffe

Very easy to use app…

26th June 2024

Very easy to use app for transferring and converting currency with clear fees and no hidden surprises.

Thomas Patterson

VERY GOOD

26th June 2024

VERY GOOD

PAUL PAPSON

Wise Expert Review

In this review of Wise, I tell you why they are such excellent money transfer app, what we dislike about them and how they compare on service and price to the best money transfer apps for sending money abroad.

Wise Review
Good Money Guide Recommended 2024

Name: Wise

Description: Wise is a low cost international money transfer app that helps people send money abroad for much less than it would cost to do it through their banks. Wise was launched as Transferwise in 2010 as a peer to peer currency network, but has since grown to provide money transfers to over 15 million customers sending more than £9 billion a month.

Are Wise a good money transfer app?

Yes, Wise is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to send money abroad. Highly recommended.

But in a nutshell… Should you use Wise? Yes. Are they cheap? Yes. Is it easy to use? Yes. Are they safe? Yes.

The only reason not to use them really, is if you already bank with Starling whose fees are pretty similar and don’t want another app on your phone…

Pros

  • Cheap
  • Easy
  • Fast

Cons

  • Phone support hard to find
  • Only suitable for smaller transfers
  • Pricing
    (5)
  • Currencies
    (4.5)
  • Online Platform
    (4.5)
  • Customer Service
    (4)
  • Research & Analysis
    (3)
Overall
4.2
 

Truely disruptive

A few years ago, just before Wise was founded me and some friends all clubbed together to buy a friend of mine who was living in Munich some time in a music studio for his birthday. His girlfriend arranged it from Germany and asked us to all send over €30. It was an absolute nightmare. I was banking with Natwest and they were going to charge me £20 as a minimum fee for sending the money to a European bank account. So that was out of the question. Next I tried PayPal, but they were still a ridiculously expensive. So what I did, in the end, was, as I was working in The City, on Lower Thames Street, at lunch I went to one of the Euro cash machines next to the Tower of London and withdrew €30 in cash, put it in an envelope and send it with a little note through the office post room. If I hadn’t managed to post to from work and had to buy stamps instead, I probably wouldn’t have bothered at all.

There really was no way to send a small amount of money abroad, unless you had the time and inclination to inconvenience yourself and the receiver by visiting a Western Union shop.

Thankfully then along came Wise. It was a boom time for money transfer apps and Transferwise as they were then called were by no means the only one touting for business. But what Wise had above all others was an excellent story.

How does Wise work?

Wise works by matching up buyers and sellings of currency in different countries, rather than by physically transferring money internationally. Wise is not a bank, and does not have a banking licence in the UK (it is a Money Service Business), so your money is not protected by the FSCS. But, if you have a Wise card you can still get a sort code and account number, so even though Wise is not officially a bank, it may as well be becuase it acts in pretty much the same way.

The story was the circumvention of “evil” banks by transferring money abroad using peer to peer networks. Which was basically Transferwise saying that if you need to transfer €30 to Germany there is probably someone in Germany who wants to transfer €30 to England. So instead of doing two foreign exchange conversions and two bank transfers, we’ll just match your €30 with their €30 and there is no need to do any FX, and therefore far fewer fees to pay.

They also had some fantastic marketing, for example stripping off to their pants in front of the Bank of England to protest rip-off banking charges. It was a stroke of genius, really, as there are two things that the British really like. One is seeing naked people. The second is hating banks.

They weren’t the first people to cause a scene to turbocharger their business. Specsavers tried to sue Glasses Direct after they dressed up as sheep outside their shops in 2006 claiming that their customers were being “fleeced”. And a few days before Transferwise got naked, Betfair had driven a massive Octopus through central London, and guess what, it broke down slap bang in the middle of Oxford Street, causing outrage and loads of free press coverage for their World Cup offers. The similarity doesn’t end there either, Betfair is a P2P sports betting platform where you bet against other players rather than evil bookies, who like evil banks just want your money.

Of course, just as with Betfair, liquidity gaps need to be filled when there isn’t someone on the other side of your transaction and whilst Betfair still used traditional market makers, Transferwise used firms like Currency Cloud (now owned by Visa) to ensure that customers always got the best price even.

Richard Branson was also an investor. So there you go. If he likes the product. Why shouldn’t you?

Over the years, Wise as grown by doing the two things I mentioned earlier really well.

Customer service

We’ve scored Wise down a bit on customer service because they don;t provide a telephone number, so you cannot contact Wise by phone.

This is fine for small transactions because they handle millions per day, but if you are sending a larger amount of money abroad you are better off using a currency broker, where you can phone up an account executive or dedicated dealer, who can provide updates on your transfer or help out immediately with any issues.

But all in all, Wise customer support, is fairly efficient.

Is Wise safe?

Wise are about as safe as you can get for sending small amounts of money abroad.

Wise are now listed on the LSE (LON:WISE) with at market cap at the time of writing of £8.2bn., Admittedly, that is about 12% down from where they IPO’d, but even though lots of tech firms listed in 2021, it was a pretty bad time to come to market, and most have performed poorly since then because of overall market conditions and over ambitions venture capitalists wanting a return on their investments.

Using a money transfer app that is publically listed, is a great way to see how healthy the company is. If the Wise share price starts to go down, then this could be an indication that they are running in potential financial problems and be a sign to use a different app.

Apps & platform

Wise makes it incredibly easy to transfer money abroad. It’s hard to say too much about the app because it only really does one thing, and that’s help you send small amounts of money abroad. And it does that really well. If you have a large amount of money to send you are better off with a currency broker because they can help with market timing, and lock in exchange rates with forward contracts and currency options. Plus if you ask them nicely and are transferring enough money, they will undercut Wise’s exchange rates and fees. Remember, that in FX, everything is negotiable.

But if you are not transferring a small amount of money overseas, Wise is one of the cheapest money transfer apps out there. And more importantly, they display their fees clearly on their website and app, although everyone now has to do this because the FCA got very upset with people not displaying true FX transaction costs.

Pricing

Wise are not the absolute cheapest out there though. At the moment, Atlantic Money will do GBPUSD transfers at the interbank rate plus £3. But to be honest, I don’t think that is sustainable and it’s only one corridor versus Wise, which offers 21 currencies. You also get the feeling that the money transfer market is saturated now, which is why Wise are starting to offer other products like multi-currency bank accounts and investing. If you want to know more about Atlantic Money, you can read my interview with the founders Neeraj Baid and Patrick Kavanagh (who helped build Robinhood) and make up your own mind about if that’s the right service for you.

Research & analysis

Wise doesn’t really have any currency forecasts, which is fine because exchange rates are very hard to predict. But it would be nice to have at least some commentary on the markets.

We’ve given Wise a mid-ranking for research and analysis as they do provide lots of excellent guides online and they have a good insight tab on the app which can help you see where your money is being spent.

If you want currency forecasts you can read our regularly updated analysis on if now is a good time to buy USD or EUR.

Wise Facts & Figures

💱 Total Currencies50+ on offer
💵 Min Transfer£1
💰 Max Transfer1.2m EUR
🛒Customers10 million+
🏛️ Founded2011
🏢 HQLondon, UK
⚖️ RegulatedYes- by the FCA
Account Options
🧍 Personal Transfers✔️
👔 Business Transfers✔️
📅 Currency Forwards
💸 Currency Options
🤝 Personal Service
📱Phone Dealing
⌨️ Online Platform✔️ – very intuitive & easy
⭐ TrustPilot Rating4.2/5
🌐 WebsiteVisit Wise

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