Wise (formerly TransferWise) is a UK-based money transfer service launched in January 2011 by Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus with headquarters in London and offices in a number of cities including Tallinn, New York and Singapore. The company supports more than 750 currency routes across the world including GBP, USD, EUR, AUD and CAD, and provides multi-currency accounts. In 2018 TransferWise’s net profit reached $8 million and its customer-base reached 4 million, who collectively transfer around $4 billion per month.
The concept was to match transfers with other people and then have a small commission while using the inter-bank mid exchange rate, unlike traditional currency transfers where there are buy and sell rates and the broker takes the difference between the two.
