Wise (LON: WISE), the global technology company building the best way to move money around the world, today announced that it has removed fees for customers transferring money out of their Wise account GBP balance to another GBP account outside Wise.
For customers in Brazil, Wise also announced a price drop when sending money abroad.
By engineering away some of the costs involved, Wise has been able to deliver savings when customers send money from Brazil via any payment method or convert BRL into a different currency balance within their Wise account. For example:
Money transfer: When sending 10,000 BRL to USD via bank transfer it now costs 213.77 BRL instead of 217.43 BRL
Converting money within your Wise account: When converting 10,000 BRL to USD now it costs 199.94 BRL instead of 213.52 BRL
Interest income enables same-currency fees removal
Removing fees when sending money from a Wise account in the same currency has been a much-requested feature. Customers holding GBP, EUR, HUF and SGD will no longer be charged for same-currency transfers.
Wise strives to pass on savings to its customers and this fee removal is no exception. As interest rates have risen globally our customers’ balances are now generating interest income. Wise intends to pass on this economic benefit to customers, through pricing, such as in the form of this fee removal, and through continued investment in both product innovation and infrastructure development.
Lars Trunin, UK Head of Product at Wise: “Our mission is to bring down the price of moving and managing money around the world over time and we’ve built a long-term, sustainable growth model where we share our successes with our customers to achieve this goal. As a result of this financial discipline over the years, we’re happy to be in a position to pass on the economic benefits from the balances customers are holding with us through these new prices, while we also continue to invest in our product and infrastructure.”
Earlier this year, Wise lowered fees to send money to Chile and to send money to China via Weixin, a mobile payment service.
With a global average cost of 0.64%, Wise’s prices are dramatically lower than those of incumbent providers and banks that typically charge between 3-5% to move money internationally, hiding the bulk of the charge in inflated exchange rates.