17 ms·

TransferWise changes name to Wise

243 points by watbe 6y ago

xmodem 6y ago
I'm very happy with TransferWise' low fees, but their 'borderless' account is unfortunately no substitute for a real account in the native currency in a lot of cases.
- hiq 6y ago
  The deal breaker for me is the fee for bank transfers, something I've never paid for before.
  - f430 6y ago
    how much is Dwolla in comparison? their ACH fees does seem a little more expensive
  - Anderkent 6y ago
    Where do you live? Bank wires are pretty expensive everywhere I've seen. (local bank transfers like ACH are free on TW too)
    - wildfire 6y ago
      In the UK, EU and Australia - probably a few other places too - fees to transfer fund between do not exist (unless you are a business).
      - fastball 6y ago
        There is no fee to send money from your TransferWise Borderless UK account to another UK bank account.
        Caligatio 6y ago
        There is, it's just really small: 34p or something. EDIT: 32p - https://transferwise.com/gb/pricing/borderless-send?source=GBP&target=GBP&payInMethod=BALANCE https://transferwise.com/gb/pricing/borderless-send?source=G...
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        kiwijamo 6y ago
        There's a few for ATM withdrawals over 300 a month. Whereas all banks in New Zealand don't charge any fees for this on most if not all account types.
      - kiwijamo 6y ago
        New Zealand too.
      - Anderkent 6y ago
        I guess this is something that might have changed - but I definitely recall being charged for making transfers from Poland to the UK, and same very recently for Switzerland <-> UK transfers. In both, rather insidiously, the outgoing bank cannot tell me what the final fee will be, and I only find out what was charged when less money appears in the recipient account than what I sent.
    - hiq 6y ago
      EU / Switzerland, so I've never experienced this. I thought it was due to SEPA preventing such fees, but that doesn't seem to be the case if I read this section correctly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area#Charges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area#Char.... I guess healthy competition just killed these fees. I apparently have to pay €0.28 per transfer in EUR with Transferwise. There are competitors (both in CHF and in EUR) that do this for free. I do something like 8 transfers per month, so that's 8*0.28*12 = €26.88 per year, for no added value. Not convincing.
  - mbeex 6y ago
    > The deal breaker for me is the fee for bank transfers, something I've never paid for before. You are too young :-). This also might change. German banks start again to take monthly fees for accounts, so why not for single transactions. This said, I have to deal with accounts in NZ and Europe. Fees as well as speed for transfers between them is a whole other world when using TW compared to classic banking. These kind of costs have exist forever, SEPA conditions are the exception, not the rule, internationally. TransferWises multi-currency account is a nice part of the package. I learned here today, this can be done even cheaper by using a Forex broker like IB, but I don't need this on a daily basis.
- panarky 6y ago
  What are the limitations?
  - jen20 6y ago
    One in the US is that you cannot use a borderless account for ACH transactions initiated by the counterparty (despite it presenting the details that make it look like you can).
    - Gaelan 6y ago
      That means no paychecks, right?
    - f430 6y ago
      have you looked at Currency Cloud?
    - dkjaudyeqooe 6y ago
      If you're saying that people can't transfer money into your account via ACH, then that's not true. Being paid by a client is a specific use they describe.
      - jen20 6y ago
        The opposite is what I am describing. I.e I cannot (read: could not last time I tried it, about 2 years ago) pay rent using TransferWise, upon entering the routing code and account number.
    - rahimnathwani 6y ago
      I'm curious to know how you verified this. The help text in the app is explicit that "There's no fee to receive ACH payments, or any other kind of payment that uses your ACH routing number." I remember the app used to show two sets of US bank details, and that the routing number for receiving wire transfers was different from the one used for receiving ACH transfers. But that seems no longer to be the case.
- Gladdyu 6y ago
  I'm not sure whether their fees are really that low. For transfers between your own accounts, for anything over very small amounts, I found that their 0.35% variable fee is pretty large compared to adding the funds to a brokerage account and then doing the conversion there (ie. IB charges 0.002% on currency trades, with a min of $2), and transferring back out into the desired currency.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Yeah, you're definitely paying a premium for them handling smaller quantities, end-to-end, in one easy tool. IBKR requires knowledge of Forex trading, but is hands down the cheapest and fastest solution - for those that are able to work it. To be fair, that describes basically all of IBKR. It's still mind-blowing to think IBKR charges $20 per million, when the airport Travelex will charge you $20 per hundred lol.
  - owenversteeg 6y ago
    Well, for starters most transfers I and my friends have had to make are not to our own accounts. There's also the time issue - I have an IB account, and love it, but most of the time I'm using Transferwise because I'm in a different country and paying someone, or because I need to move money between my own accounts quickly. Transferwise is literally instant for about half the transfers they do, which is incredible. Meanwhile with IBKR I'm usually out at least three business days for any USD funds to show up in IBKR, plus whatever time to wait on the foreign currency side. Then there's also the UI - sometimes I need someone else to transfer the money, or IBKR's login system is locking me out, etc etc, and in those cases Transferwise always wins. Or if I'm transferring under 25k and I need to do it outside of market hours - in that case my transaction is an odd lot at IBKR, getting me (oftentimes) bad rates, and I might as well use Transferwise. Don't get me wrong, I like IBKR and I do use it, but Transferwise is definitely more useful 90% of the time.
  - tcpekin 6y ago
    Could you explain how this works, or point me in the right direction on what to read? I'm interested in not using Transferwise as much if this is better.
- dkjaudyeqooe 6y ago
  You're probably right, but that's not the point. It's a free/cheap multi currency account with local bank details in 6+ countries, which give you 90% of the functionality you want, namely the ability to hold and transfer cash. If you need more functionality you get a local bank account.
jcun4128 6y ago
I've had good experience with TWise, sending money can be such a pain. WU was okay but after you exceed some amount start to get blocked/have to prove identity etc... I'm not rich/not sending massive amounts but was still getting flagged early on. TW is working pretty well so far, so is WU after I sent some docs. I tried a few other companies too but yeah settled on TW/WU.
- mtmail 6y ago
  We use it for business regularly and repeat transfers become faster over time. We had freelancers (EUR->GBP) receive their money in 2 days, after a while it was down to hours and we even saw 1 hour transfers. The limit became the receiving back making the funds available to the bank account owner.
- frosted-flakes 6y ago
  WU = Western Union?
  - jcun4128 6y ago
    Yeah, they're great for the cash pickup transfers i.e. no receiver bank
jsnell 6y ago
This feels like an incredibly ill-advised rebrand. Everyone I know of who uses TransferWise uses it rarely, like once per year. They won't be slowly eased into the new name. They'll try using the service again for the first time in a while, and everything will have changed to look like a phishing scam. And this is a service where that trust is critical, since the interaction model of the service is so odd. I'm transferring a 5 figure amount of money to a middleman, and hoping to get 99% of it back in a few days. That requires a bit of a leap of faith. The only way this makes sense is if they're intending to sunset the transfers in a couple of years, and are all in on their "we're not calling it a bank account, so who knows if we're actually regulated like a bank" product.
- tonystubblebine 6y ago
  We use it multiple times a month and seemingly the people that want to be paid this way from us seem very familiar with it. Not sure which of our anecdotes are closer to the actual truth.
- fookyong 6y ago
  I and most people in my circle of friends use Transferwise on a daily basis, multiple times a day. It has replaced our "traditional" bank cards. FWIW, I totally understand the bigger picture goals they describe in this post and I wish them every success.
  - aikinai 6y ago
    Honest question, what do you do with it multiple times a day? You use it as your regular bank and a debit card or something?
    - doctorfoo 6y ago
      I use it as my primary spending debit card. I travel a lot, use it in random ATMs and I keep it topped up just enough that I wouldn't be devastated if the account contents were stolen. Also use the money transfer side monthly to pay rent in a foreign country.
crummy 6y ago
TransferWise makes it easy to forget how much of a pain it was to send money around internationally before.
- chx 6y ago
  That pain is so huge I just can't forget it. I am a Canadian resident , a dual Canadian-Hungarian citizen, my brother has accounts in Austria and Hungary, my clients are in the USA chiefly but also all over the EU. So international wires are quite a thing. Here in Canada, the traditional way I could send money was going to a bank branch , fill out a very long form to be able to do a SWIFT transfer and pay through the nose for it. Then came VBCE online, an FX company which was OK-ish except you needed to ask them to add everyone wiring you beforehands. And they demanded to have an up to date passport on file. Then came transferwise and the world turned into a happy place.
  - dgudkov 6y ago
    Many Canadian banks allow sending wire transfers online. For instance, with RBC you can send up to CAD 10K equivalent online for a CAD 15-20 fee. The UI is rather simple and they even have 2FA for transfers. RBC also has the more advanced RBC Express for online banking but I don't know much about it. However, it's still worse than TransferWise. If a wire transfer is sent via RBC online, the actual amount received by the recipient is frequently $25-27 less which is supposedly due to some random routing fee (it's not possible to specify an intermediary bank in RBC online). As a result, the total cost of a wire transfer ends up being CAD 45-50. In TransferWise a wire transfer costs C$6 to send and the received amount is always the same as the sent. The UI is simple, and the support is helpful (never had problems with them).
    - chx 6y ago
      I just looked into the (relatively) new CIBC Global Money Transfer and it quotes me 4313 CAD for the other end to receive 1 000 000 HUF while TransferWise quotes 4298.23, a tiny 0.34% difference. However, TransferWise still has the huge, huge advantage of not sending a SWIFT transfer in a lot of countries -- this is the fee you mentioned, the recipient can be charged for receiving a SWIFT wire and you can't know ahead of the time -- when sending a proper wire from the branch you can volunteer as tribute erm accept those charges but the Global Money Transfer doesn't allow for this AFAIK. TransferWise uses local giro wherever they can. It also makes for a smoother experience, I just looked into it and quite a few forums are full of complaints -- SWIFT is old and finicky, no doubt at that. They also offer accounts connected to various giros as well , so you can have a HUF account, a SEPA enabled EU account and so forth.
dzhiurgis 6y ago
Can someone answer how TransferWise gets away without "reporting this information to HMRC or any other tax authority." aka dream for tax evaders (who get paid in foreign currency)?
- regecks 6y ago
  Why do you say they get away with it? TW for sure reports to my country's financial intelligence agency (AUSTRAC). I get paid in foreign currency via TW and it's pretty amazing.
  - dzhiurgis 6y ago
    What do you mean "for sure"? They claim they don't - https://transferwise.com/help/articles/2932394/how-does-tax-work-with-my-transferwise-account https://transferwise.com/help/articles/2932394/how-does-tax-...
    - wildfire 6y ago
      In order to operate in Australia, you must report transactions over a certain threshold. See: https://www.austrac.gov.au/business/how-comply-guidance-and-resources/reporting/cash-transactions-over-10000-ttr https://www.austrac.gov.au/business/how-comply-guidance-and-... I have it good authority [1], that quite a few local Australian banks report when the threshold is 1000 or more. For international transfers any amount must be reported: https://www.austrac.gov.au/business/how-comply-guidance-and-resources/reporting/money-sent-overseas-itfi https://www.austrac.gov.au/business/how-comply-guidance-and-... [1]: My father works there.
      - dzhiurgis 6y ago
        If you get their eftpos card and never wire remaining balance to aussie then it can remain untaxed? Plus you're not doing international wire - they transfer from their local account (not 100% sure how it's accounted tho).
colincooke 6y ago
I love transferwise, depend on it often. I don't get the rebrand, their old name was descriptive, easy to google, and from all perspectives really good. The rebrand won't change me using it, but I really can't see the positive in this.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Definitely agree, akin to when BankSimple rebranded to Simple. It was awesome as is. Anyway, hope they stick around and eventually turn into a financial OS instead of folks needing a bank, plugging into underlying deposit accounts in the countries you need.
  - biztos 6y ago
    Funny, in my market “SimplePay” rebranded as “Simple” and I just had to double check my “Simple” iPhone app to make sure it wasn’t the former BankSimple. It wasn’t. So I guess there must be multiple apps called “Simple?”
    - kiwijamo 6y ago
      It's so simple isn't it! /s
- biztos 6y ago
  Maybe it’s just that the name became available and the boss always wanted a short, dictionary-word name? Dreams of ubiquity? I think it’ll make searching a lot harder especially for an international service. Wise? Waze? Whys? Ways? But... it seems to have worked for “véz” so maybe this is just the “go big or go home” startup thing.
- Tenoke 6y ago
  They already had a lot of brand recognition that this really strikes me as odd as well. I'm guessing this is a better name for an IPO? Edit: A quick googling confirms they've indeed started talking about an IPO recently.
- 6y ago
endisneigh 6y ago
I find it interesting that companies often rebrand themselves to a generic word. Would Microsoft, for example gain anything by calling themselves "Micro" or "Soft"? I also wonder if they tried to rebrand to "Transfer" as that would at least describe themselves and give them some interesting opportunities, e.g. money.transfer, coin.transfer
m00dy 6y ago
Banks are still cheap when it comes to large amounts.
- nikolay 6y ago
  Anything over $4K is cheaper and faster with banks like Mercury, which takes just $20 for wires.
- fadesibert 6y ago
  Depends on your definitions of cheap and large. Some banks are very good at FX in the 5,6,7 figure range. Others aren't. Fidelity, for example, charges no fee but a 1% spread, which is a "hidden" fee. FirstRepublic charges .01% (and thats because we are "small" by institution standards ~50k / transaction). Most banks are badly set up for consumer size transactions, unless they are by default multi currency (Revolut and Starling come to mind). The traditional banks may be "no-fee" - but some have charged as much as 2%. Still nothing on the ultimate rip off - the foreign currency ATMs at airports - fee +5+% spread...
computator 6y ago
Would it be safe to use this if you're transferring a very large amount of money, for example to buy a house in a foreign country? Anyone have experiences (good or bad) with large transfers they'd like to share?
- dkjaudyeqooe 6y ago
  I'd look at other options like OFX, they end up being cheaper for large transfers and are geared towards the kind of transfer you mention.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    +1 of OFX. I use TransferWise a lot for cross border treasury management, but used OFX when moving $large_sum USD->EUR to buy a flat in the EU because they offered a better conversion rate.
- welder 6y ago
  Yes, I did that and it worked fine.
- wildfire 6y ago
  I have used it to pay a large foreign tax bill, so not quite a house. If the amount is GBP£30000 (might have changed now), you can arrange a longer pay-in time (normally it is 24 hours) and they will let you have the cash sit in your account for up to a week and then find the right rate. Later: Appears they have lowered the threshold to £20000 now (see https://transferwise.com/help/articles/2961856/tips-for-getting-started-with-large-transfers https://transferwise.com/help/articles/2961856/tips-for-gett...)
- lmm 6y ago
  They are not covered by any kind of FDIC equivalent (and in fairness there's not really any good deposit insurance regime for international accounts). They claim to use ringfenced accounts for customer funds but AIUI that's all self-certified (and wasn't there at all when they first started, although I understand they've gotten a bit more professional in various ways). I wouldn't worry too much about making a one-off transfer under normal circumstances - the risk of them going bankrupt in the next week is pretty low - but I'd be a little wary of keeping a substantial balance with them over the long term.
jamshidhashimi 6y ago
I applied last year to use their services for my officially registered company based in Canada. They didn’t approve it, and when I asked for the reason, they said it is their algorithms. It was not wise thing to do.
mythz 6y ago
Big fan of TransferWise, been using them for years as they're the only FX provider I've used who are actually transparent about their fees which are derived from the real-time actual market rate at time of submitting the transfer - which end up being substantially lower (and much faster to deliver) than any other FX service I used to use. I get why they'd want a rebrand to "wise", similar to "Apple Computer" -> "Apple" when Apple started doing than just computers but IMO it's a bit early as they're still only known for their core Transferring funds services. At the same time having a short company name & domain like `wise.com` does give the impression of a more global trusted brand for anyone who's never heard of them - so I'd say it's a good move for them overall.
- Kwpolska 6y ago
  “Apple Computer” wasn’t how anyone referred to the company, basically ever. Nobody calls it “Apple Inc.” today (outside of legal stuff, of course). But I doubt anyone called the fintech “Wise” before the rebrand.
usaphp 6y ago
Just wanted to say that I absolutely love the UX/UI of transferwise, every time I need to do a transfer I am honestly enjoying the process, well done.
zlwaterfield 6y ago
I love TransferWise, use it all the time. Honestly, pretty surprised by this rebrand, I don't get why they did it.
arthurcolle 6y ago
The logo is very bad. Different angles for different letters? It's comically bad. (is it flatter S supposed to remind you of bank wires) ? Also, top Google search is this: https://www.wise.us/ https://www.wise.us/ Unbelievably bad rebrand, shockingly so Naming collisions is such an ugly state of affairs
- simonklitj 6y ago
  Woah, that's a rough collision too.
- cl3misch 6y ago
  Am I the only one thinking this collision might be intentional?
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  Well the top Google result may obviously change once their site becomes more established. The name collision isn't great, but then again Transferwise was already somewhat of a collision with the other Wise anyway.
- fumblebee 6y ago
  I can't help but see the Visa logo when I look at the new Wise logo. Intentional, maybe?
- JacobSuperslav 6y ago
  i think this is a genius rebranding considering the similarity of the word Wise to Visa.
andreareina 6y ago
I wish they had the capability to issue virtual card numbers. I don't even need temporary ones, just want the capability to segregate my spending into separate accounts.
- mmerlin 6y ago
  Virtual Cards can help you pinpoint which of your service providers got hacked, plus minimise the amount of OTHER services you need to update payment details for, after a card number going AWOL
mamborambo 6y ago
Although the rebranding is probably unnecessary, it is still a good move if the company has ambition beyond fund transfer --- perhaps into alternative financial services, non-bank assets, or other types of nomadic fund application. I have to agree there are too many geographical restrictions in today's financial systems, and if their strong brand position can help to loosen those grips a little, more power to them.
MaheshC 6y ago
I use transferwise as my main bank. The one thing I need from them now is the possibility to invest my borderless account funds in ETF or other guaranteed capital investment vehicles. I hope this rebrand means they are heading in that direction.
- riffraff 6y ago
  I've literally asked for this in every user satisfaction survey they've sent me for the last 5 years, and like you I hope this is a sign they're heading in this direction. The competition in this space is large, but there are a ton of trade offs between various services and in many countries (hungary, for one) the local alternatives simply suck.
joecool1029 6y ago
Someone didn't do their trademark research. Out on the east coast US (like NYC metro) anyone hearing the name Wise isn't going to think 'transfer service', they are going to think potato chips: https://www.wisesnacks.com https://www.wisesnacks.com
- arcticbull 6y ago
  I see this like Delta Faucets and Delta Airlines. I've never had any trouble thinking of one when I meant the other, and I suspect the same is true here.
- MagnumPIG 6y ago
  I assume they did and figured nobody would mistake a chips brand with an FX service. Legally I'm sure it's not a problem.
  - sumedh 6y ago
    There is also another wise.us service.
- mmerlin 6y ago
  Trademarks have 40+ categories. Look up how many trademarks with the word "acme" in them can happily coexist.
keiferski 6y ago
Apologies, but let me put on my cynical hat for a moment to make a joke. Nothing could be more representative of modernity than the fact that typing wise into your browser bar will now direct you to a financial services company.
kylehotchkiss 6y ago
I got married abroad and that often implies needing a service like TransferWise. When I first got married, I actually thought I’d need to use hsbc (who sort of support online wire transfers) but thanks to TransferWise, I’ve never once had to send a wire transfer. TransferWise sends money more quickly to my wife than I can send between my own bank accounts in USA. Very reasonable (but sometimes random) KYC (make sure to maintain your drivers license at a permanent address where you can receive mail in your home country). I really wish them all the best with the new brand and am excited for the new products! Even when I’m just being a tourist, the debit card and borderless card make working in different currencies a breeze. My only wish is that the debit card issued to us citizens didn’t default to dollar payments but could intelligently mark itself as the local currency. Remember that when a foreign terminal tries to bill you in USD, the bank the card reader is connected to makes profit from marking up exchange rates.
emp_ 6y ago
Great Timing! USERS BEWARE, my story I used the service for two years and just had the most surreal disastrous experience since the year flipped. I religiously send a the same (about 5k USD) to my home country every month so I can pay my mortgage and other bills I left when moved to NA. 2021 arrives, I start a transfer on January 27, days pass, nothing. I contact support 10 days later (of something that in the past 24 months took 3 days), they say I need to prove I’m the recipient so I ask them to cancel the transfer so I can start it from my personal account instead so both accounts match and no documentation is needed, another 10 days go by, still nothing. I contact support again and found out that they withheld my deposit because they needed me to give, bear with me, POWER OF ATTORNEY among tons of other more resonable documentation to the destination country bank, so instead of signing my life away I cancel the transfer again: 26 days an counting TransferWise held my money which I will NEVER deal with again and tell this tale whenever I get a chance.
- climb_stealth 6y ago
  Thanks for the warning! Have you decided on what you are going to use instead?
  - emp_ 6y ago
    Going to try Xoom next, looking at conversion rates plus the big name behind (Paypal) which is not short of horror stories themselves.
- esperent 6y ago
  Unfortunately I have come to believe there is no banking service that won't do things like this at some point. For example, I used to swear by N26 until I had a small issue (involving some tiny amount <€50). I told support very politely that I wasn't happy. Their response was full nuclear "pay everything immediately or we're sending your details to a collection agency". I was amazed, I had been a loyal customer for years and this was such a disproportionate response to something tiny. I had been intending to try and work things out,but from that response I simply withdrew all the money from my account and closed it. Now I use Transferwise, and have had no such problems, so far. But I'm under no illusions that I won't have problems in the future.
johnisgood 6y ago
The reason I am NOT USING TransferWise is that I encountered something strange. To obtain their debit card, one of the requirements is that I add money to my account. So far so good. When I am on that page where I can enter the amount I want to add, there is always a minimum amount given. This is not in itself a problem. The problem is that - to my surprise - this varies by a LOT, and I have no clue why. Sometimes it is 5 USD, sometimes it is 20 USD. As in, sometimes I can add 5 USD or above, but not less, and sometimes I can only add 20 USD or above, but not less. By now I went through[1]: 5 USD -> 20 USD -> 1 USD -> 5 USD. Why does this happen? I do not know the actual values as I was using another currency, but you get the point. [1] I kept checking only for 2 days, so those values were changing this way within those 48 hours max.
- refurb 6y ago
  Sounds you got caught up in A/B testing maybe? It’s to TW advantage to have a higher minimum deposit, but the drop off is likely higher at higher amounts. They probably test high amounts regularly. But as a single customer you shouldn’t have seen different amounts. That’s just confusing.
  - johnisgood 6y ago
    Yeah, it confused the heck out of me, and made me reluctant to use it, because who knows what else they may change. The differences were huge in my currency. :/ I checked just now, it is back to the initial value, the value that I encountered first.
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
"Horror" stories abound in this thread (of course, all is relative; first world problems; etc). My view is mostly that customer service is broken. Everywhere. A few days ago I wrote and published a "corporate memo" where I make the case that a company such as Stripe could tackle this problem and solve it [0]. I really hope that someone will eventually find a way to provide proper customer service, without resorting to these terrible practices when something gets weird. [0]: https://simon.medium.com/stripes-opportunity-reinventing-customer-service-babde2febce4 https://simon.medium.com/stripes-opportunity-reinventing-cus...
- aurbano 6y ago
  I'm not sure if you're directing this comment at TransferWise or at companies in general, but I'll reply from TransferWise's point of view - Disclaimer, I'm an engineer at TransferWise, but this is my own opinion. TransferWise takes customer support extremely seriously with an in-house team of support reps who are trained in all of our features. On top of that each team may have one or more CS "champions" who are the bridge between product teams and customer support. These champions usually know the product inside-out, and are in slack channels with the dev teams. So when an issue is not a customer misunderstanding something, and turns out to be an actual bug, the CS rep will work with the engineers to find a workaround, and to get a fix deployed as fast as possible - all while the customer knows exactly what's going on. Bottomline is that I agree that customer support is hard, and very expensive. But it doesn't have to be broken, and I don't think it is at TransferWise (well, Wise now)
  - throwaway34543 6y ago
    It's interesting to see your take on how things work however from reading around it would appear that Wise is pretty trigger happy to terminate accounts and almost anti crypto. It's interesting to see things like https://jimmymow.medium.com/announcing-strike-global-2392b908f611 https://jimmymow.medium.com/announcing-strike-global-2392b90... and https://pagofx.com/ https://pagofx.com/
dharma1 6y ago
Why mess up a great brand? TransferWise rolls off the tongue just fine and does what it says. This is like Facebook rebranding to Book. Hubris.
cik 6y ago
I might be one of the rare people who loves Transferwise? I've used them for 5 years, to transfer money from multiple businesses, and personally. I've sent money between businesses, to people internationally, paid for office rent, developers, heck I've done transfers to myself between countries with it. I ran into KYC, which is only fair. They required proof of funds which included a letter from my accountant. They assigned a named case worker with a phone number, who I could call. 10/10 would do - and have done again, as recently as two weeks ago. I love this company.
- lm28469 6y ago
  I also loves it and I've been using it for 5 years. I regularly transfer money internationally and it works in 24-48 hours for a few dollars per transfer
pmlnr 6y ago
WHY!? "Wise" is unsearchable, it's a common word, this is an idiotic move.
ElectricMind 6y ago
Ironically not wise. I think Seth Godin will not be pleased. This is against niche philosophy - I was good at something then I wanted to do everything - then I went bankrupt. I like TransferWise but this is ridiculous move.
EastSmith 6y ago
Hope they stop sending my data to Facebook. I am their customer for a little over an year now and I was very disapointed to find out they send a lot of stuff to Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity/ https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity/).
zed88 6y ago
Whatever the name, always loved their service.
trestenhortz 6y ago
Wise is far less memorable and searchable and identifiable and unique than TransferWise.
AlessandroA 6y ago
The new Wise logo reminds me a lot of the Visa logo — probably not a coincidence: https://wise.com/public-resources/assets/logos/wise/brand_logo.svg https://wise.com/public-resources/assets/logos/wise/brand_lo...
3np 6y ago
I just wish they would not inherit the horrible security practices from the incumbents. Opening a new account, the happy path steers the user to 2FA via SMS (which can't be disabled once enabled). The only other option is via their proprietary iOS or Android app. Please, please give us at least TOTP, if not FIDO U2F or Webauthn. SMS is inherently insecure (arguably worse than e-mail) and I'm not going to download your app.
platty 6y ago
Justin Timberlake: "Drop the 'transfer', just 'wise', it's cleaner"
ajonit 6y ago
For the kind of service they provide, transfer.com would have been better. (Of course if it all it was possible) Nonetheless, not a bad idea, as companies grow they all want the shortest possible brandable .com domain. I remember seomoz.com rebranded to moz.com for few million $$.
Nightvein 6y ago
I was trying to figure out a way to move my GBP from my US based paypal account through TransferWise to avoid the Paypal FX rate, but couldn't figure out how...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

243 points by watbe 6y ago

I'm very happy with TransferWise' low fees, but their 'borderless' account is unfortunately no substitute for a real account in the native currency in a lot of cases.

hiq 6y ago
The deal breaker for me is the fee for bank transfers, something I've never paid for before.
- f430 6y ago
  how much is Dwolla in comparison? their ACH fees does seem a little more expensive
- Anderkent 6y ago
  Where do you live? Bank wires are pretty expensive everywhere I've seen. (local bank transfers like ACH are free on TW too)
  - wildfire 6y ago
    In the UK, EU and Australia - probably a few other places too - fees to transfer fund between do not exist (unless you are a business).
    - fastball 6y ago
      There is no fee to send money from your TransferWise Borderless UK account to another UK bank account.
      - Caligatio 6y ago
        There is, it's just really small: 34p or something. EDIT: 32p - https://transferwise.com/gb/pricing/borderless-send?source=GBP&target=GBP&payInMethod=BALANCE https://transferwise.com/gb/pricing/borderless-send?source=G...
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - kiwijamo 6y ago
        There's a few for ATM withdrawals over 300 a month. Whereas all banks in New Zealand don't charge any fees for this on most if not all account types.
    - kiwijamo 6y ago
      New Zealand too.
    - Anderkent 6y ago
      I guess this is something that might have changed - but I definitely recall being charged for making transfers from Poland to the UK, and same very recently for Switzerland <-> UK transfers. In both, rather insidiously, the outgoing bank cannot tell me what the final fee will be, and I only find out what was charged when less money appears in the recipient account than what I sent.
  - hiq 6y ago
    EU / Switzerland, so I've never experienced this. I thought it was due to SEPA preventing such fees, but that doesn't seem to be the case if I read this section correctly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area#Charges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area#Char.... I guess healthy competition just killed these fees. I apparently have to pay €0.28 per transfer in EUR with Transferwise. There are competitors (both in CHF and in EUR) that do this for free. I do something like 8 transfers per month, so that's 8*0.28*12 = €26.88 per year, for no added value. Not convincing.
- mbeex 6y ago
  > The deal breaker for me is the fee for bank transfers, something I've never paid for before. You are too young :-). This also might change. German banks start again to take monthly fees for accounts, so why not for single transactions. This said, I have to deal with accounts in NZ and Europe. Fees as well as speed for transfers between them is a whole other world when using TW compared to classic banking. These kind of costs have exist forever, SEPA conditions are the exception, not the rule, internationally. TransferWises multi-currency account is a nice part of the package. I learned here today, this can be done even cheaper by using a Forex broker like IB, but I don't need this on a daily basis.
panarky 6y ago
What are the limitations?
- jen20 6y ago
  One in the US is that you cannot use a borderless account for ACH transactions initiated by the counterparty (despite it presenting the details that make it look like you can).
  - Gaelan 6y ago
    That means no paychecks, right?
  - f430 6y ago
    have you looked at Currency Cloud?
  - dkjaudyeqooe 6y ago
    If you're saying that people can't transfer money into your account via ACH, then that's not true. Being paid by a client is a specific use they describe.
    - jen20 6y ago
      The opposite is what I am describing. I.e I cannot (read: could not last time I tried it, about 2 years ago) pay rent using TransferWise, upon entering the routing code and account number.
  - rahimnathwani 6y ago
    I'm curious to know how you verified this. The help text in the app is explicit that "There's no fee to receive ACH payments, or any other kind of payment that uses your ACH routing number." I remember the app used to show two sets of US bank details, and that the routing number for receiving wire transfers was different from the one used for receiving ACH transfers. But that seems no longer to be the case.
Gladdyu 6y ago
I'm not sure whether their fees are really that low. For transfers between your own accounts, for anything over very small amounts, I found that their 0.35% variable fee is pretty large compared to adding the funds to a brokerage account and then doing the conversion there (ie. IB charges 0.002% on currency trades, with a min of $2), and transferring back out into the desired currency.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Yeah, you're definitely paying a premium for them handling smaller quantities, end-to-end, in one easy tool. IBKR requires knowledge of Forex trading, but is hands down the cheapest and fastest solution - for those that are able to work it. To be fair, that describes basically all of IBKR. It's still mind-blowing to think IBKR charges $20 per million, when the airport Travelex will charge you $20 per hundred lol.
- owenversteeg 6y ago
  Well, for starters most transfers I and my friends have had to make are not to our own accounts. There's also the time issue - I have an IB account, and love it, but most of the time I'm using Transferwise because I'm in a different country and paying someone, or because I need to move money between my own accounts quickly. Transferwise is literally instant for about half the transfers they do, which is incredible. Meanwhile with IBKR I'm usually out at least three business days for any USD funds to show up in IBKR, plus whatever time to wait on the foreign currency side. Then there's also the UI - sometimes I need someone else to transfer the money, or IBKR's login system is locking me out, etc etc, and in those cases Transferwise always wins. Or if I'm transferring under 25k and I need to do it outside of market hours - in that case my transaction is an odd lot at IBKR, getting me (oftentimes) bad rates, and I might as well use Transferwise. Don't get me wrong, I like IBKR and I do use it, but Transferwise is definitely more useful 90% of the time.
- tcpekin 6y ago
  Could you explain how this works, or point me in the right direction on what to read? I'm interested in not using Transferwise as much if this is better.
dkjaudyeqooe 6y ago
You're probably right, but that's not the point. It's a free/cheap multi currency account with local bank details in 6+ countries, which give you 90% of the functionality you want, namely the ability to hold and transfer cash. If you need more functionality you get a local bank account.

jcun4128 6y ago

I've had good experience with TWise, sending money can be such a pain. WU was okay but after you exceed some amount start to get blocked/have to prove identity etc... I'm not rich/not sending massive amounts but was still getting flagged early on. TW is working pretty well so far, so is WU after I sent some docs. I tried a few other companies too but yeah settled on TW/WU.

mtmail 6y ago
We use it for business regularly and repeat transfers become faster over time. We had freelancers (EUR->GBP) receive their money in 2 days, after a while it was down to hours and we even saw 1 hour transfers. The limit became the receiving back making the funds available to the bank account owner.
frosted-flakes 6y ago
WU = Western Union?
- jcun4128 6y ago
  Yeah, they're great for the cash pickup transfers i.e. no receiver bank

jsnell 6y ago

This feels like an incredibly ill-advised rebrand. Everyone I know of who uses TransferWise uses it rarely, like once per year. They won't be slowly eased into the new name. They'll try using the service again for the first time in a while, and everything will have changed to look like a phishing scam. And this is a service where that trust is critical, since the interaction model of the service is so odd. I'm transferring a 5 figure amount of money to a middleman, and hoping to get 99% of it back in a few days. That requires a bit of a leap of faith. The only way this makes sense is if they're intending to sunset the transfers in a couple of years, and are all in on their "we're not calling it a bank account, so who knows if we're actually regulated like a bank" product.

tonystubblebine 6y ago
We use it multiple times a month and seemingly the people that want to be paid this way from us seem very familiar with it. Not sure which of our anecdotes are closer to the actual truth.
fookyong 6y ago
I and most people in my circle of friends use Transferwise on a daily basis, multiple times a day. It has replaced our "traditional" bank cards. FWIW, I totally understand the bigger picture goals they describe in this post and I wish them every success.
- aikinai 6y ago
  Honest question, what do you do with it multiple times a day? You use it as your regular bank and a debit card or something?
  - doctorfoo 6y ago
    I use it as my primary spending debit card. I travel a lot, use it in random ATMs and I keep it topped up just enough that I wouldn't be devastated if the account contents were stolen. Also use the money transfer side monthly to pay rent in a foreign country.

crummy 6y ago

TransferWise makes it easy to forget how much of a pain it was to send money around internationally before.

chx 6y ago
That pain is so huge I just can't forget it. I am a Canadian resident , a dual Canadian-Hungarian citizen, my brother has accounts in Austria and Hungary, my clients are in the USA chiefly but also all over the EU. So international wires are quite a thing. Here in Canada, the traditional way I could send money was going to a bank branch , fill out a very long form to be able to do a SWIFT transfer and pay through the nose for it. Then came VBCE online, an FX company which was OK-ish except you needed to ask them to add everyone wiring you beforehands. And they demanded to have an up to date passport on file. Then came transferwise and the world turned into a happy place.
- dgudkov 6y ago
  Many Canadian banks allow sending wire transfers online. For instance, with RBC you can send up to CAD 10K equivalent online for a CAD 15-20 fee. The UI is rather simple and they even have 2FA for transfers. RBC also has the more advanced RBC Express for online banking but I don't know much about it. However, it's still worse than TransferWise. If a wire transfer is sent via RBC online, the actual amount received by the recipient is frequently $25-27 less which is supposedly due to some random routing fee (it's not possible to specify an intermediary bank in RBC online). As a result, the total cost of a wire transfer ends up being CAD 45-50. In TransferWise a wire transfer costs C$6 to send and the received amount is always the same as the sent. The UI is simple, and the support is helpful (never had problems with them).
  - chx 6y ago
    I just looked into the (relatively) new CIBC Global Money Transfer and it quotes me 4313 CAD for the other end to receive 1 000 000 HUF while TransferWise quotes 4298.23, a tiny 0.34% difference. However, TransferWise still has the huge, huge advantage of not sending a SWIFT transfer in a lot of countries -- this is the fee you mentioned, the recipient can be charged for receiving a SWIFT wire and you can't know ahead of the time -- when sending a proper wire from the branch you can volunteer as tribute erm accept those charges but the Global Money Transfer doesn't allow for this AFAIK. TransferWise uses local giro wherever they can. It also makes for a smoother experience, I just looked into it and quite a few forums are full of complaints -- SWIFT is old and finicky, no doubt at that. They also offer accounts connected to various giros as well , so you can have a HUF account, a SEPA enabled EU account and so forth.

dzhiurgis 6y ago

Can someone answer how TransferWise gets away without "reporting this information to HMRC or any other tax authority." aka dream for tax evaders (who get paid in foreign currency)?

regecks 6y ago
Why do you say they get away with it? TW for sure reports to my country's financial intelligence agency (AUSTRAC). I get paid in foreign currency via TW and it's pretty amazing.
- dzhiurgis 6y ago
  What do you mean "for sure"? They claim they don't - https://transferwise.com/help/articles/2932394/how-does-tax-work-with-my-transferwise-account https://transferwise.com/help/articles/2932394/how-does-tax-...
  - wildfire 6y ago
    In order to operate in Australia, you must report transactions over a certain threshold. See: https://www.austrac.gov.au/business/how-comply-guidance-and-resources/reporting/cash-transactions-over-10000-ttr https://www.austrac.gov.au/business/how-comply-guidance-and-... I have it good authority [1], that quite a few local Australian banks report when the threshold is 1000 or more. For international transfers any amount must be reported: https://www.austrac.gov.au/business/how-comply-guidance-and-resources/reporting/money-sent-overseas-itfi https://www.austrac.gov.au/business/how-comply-guidance-and-... [1]: My father works there.
    - dzhiurgis 6y ago
      If you get their eftpos card and never wire remaining balance to aussie then it can remain untaxed? Plus you're not doing international wire - they transfer from their local account (not 100% sure how it's accounted tho).

colincooke 6y ago

I love transferwise, depend on it often. I don't get the rebrand, their old name was descriptive, easy to google, and from all perspectives really good. The rebrand won't change me using it, but I really can't see the positive in this.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Definitely agree, akin to when BankSimple rebranded to Simple. It was awesome as is. Anyway, hope they stick around and eventually turn into a financial OS instead of folks needing a bank, plugging into underlying deposit accounts in the countries you need.
- biztos 6y ago
  Funny, in my market “SimplePay” rebranded as “Simple” and I just had to double check my “Simple” iPhone app to make sure it wasn’t the former BankSimple. It wasn’t. So I guess there must be multiple apps called “Simple?”
  - kiwijamo 6y ago
    It's so simple isn't it! /s
biztos 6y ago
Maybe it’s just that the name became available and the boss always wanted a short, dictionary-word name? Dreams of ubiquity? I think it’ll make searching a lot harder especially for an international service. Wise? Waze? Whys? Ways? But... it seems to have worked for “véz” so maybe this is just the “go big or go home” startup thing.
Tenoke 6y ago
They already had a lot of brand recognition that this really strikes me as odd as well. I'm guessing this is a better name for an IPO? Edit: A quick googling confirms they've indeed started talking about an IPO recently.
6y ago

endisneigh 6y ago

I find it interesting that companies often rebrand themselves to a generic word. Would Microsoft, for example gain anything by calling themselves "Micro" or "Soft"? I also wonder if they tried to rebrand to "Transfer" as that would at least describe themselves and give them some interesting opportunities, e.g. money.transfer, coin.transfer

m00dy 6y ago

Banks are still cheap when it comes to large amounts.

nikolay 6y ago
Anything over $4K is cheaper and faster with banks like Mercury, which takes just $20 for wires.
fadesibert 6y ago
Depends on your definitions of cheap and large. Some banks are very good at FX in the 5,6,7 figure range. Others aren't. Fidelity, for example, charges no fee but a 1% spread, which is a "hidden" fee. FirstRepublic charges .01% (and thats because we are "small" by institution standards ~50k / transaction). Most banks are badly set up for consumer size transactions, unless they are by default multi currency (Revolut and Starling come to mind). The traditional banks may be "no-fee" - but some have charged as much as 2%. Still nothing on the ultimate rip off - the foreign currency ATMs at airports - fee +5+% spread...

computator 6y ago

Would it be safe to use this if you're transferring a very large amount of money, for example to buy a house in a foreign country? Anyone have experiences (good or bad) with large transfers they'd like to share?

dkjaudyeqooe 6y ago
I'd look at other options like OFX, they end up being cheaper for large transfers and are geared towards the kind of transfer you mention.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  +1 of OFX. I use TransferWise a lot for cross border treasury management, but used OFX when moving $large_sum USD->EUR to buy a flat in the EU because they offered a better conversion rate.
welder 6y ago
Yes, I did that and it worked fine.
wildfire 6y ago
I have used it to pay a large foreign tax bill, so not quite a house. If the amount is GBP£30000 (might have changed now), you can arrange a longer pay-in time (normally it is 24 hours) and they will let you have the cash sit in your account for up to a week and then find the right rate. Later: Appears they have lowered the threshold to £20000 now (see https://transferwise.com/help/articles/2961856/tips-for-getting-started-with-large-transfers https://transferwise.com/help/articles/2961856/tips-for-gett...)
lmm 6y ago
They are not covered by any kind of FDIC equivalent (and in fairness there's not really any good deposit insurance regime for international accounts). They claim to use ringfenced accounts for customer funds but AIUI that's all self-certified (and wasn't there at all when they first started, although I understand they've gotten a bit more professional in various ways). I wouldn't worry too much about making a one-off transfer under normal circumstances - the risk of them going bankrupt in the next week is pretty low - but I'd be a little wary of keeping a substantial balance with them over the long term.

jamshidhashimi 6y ago

I applied last year to use their services for my officially registered company based in Canada. They didn’t approve it, and when I asked for the reason, they said it is their algorithms. It was not wise thing to do.

mythz 6y ago

Big fan of TransferWise, been using them for years as they're the only FX provider I've used who are actually transparent about their fees which are derived from the real-time actual market rate at time of submitting the transfer - which end up being substantially lower (and much faster to deliver) than any other FX service I used to use. I get why they'd want a rebrand to "wise", similar to "Apple Computer" -> "Apple" when Apple started doing than just computers but IMO it's a bit early as they're still only known for their core Transferring funds services. At the same time having a short company name & domain like `wise.com` does give the impression of a more global trusted brand for anyone who's never heard of them - so I'd say it's a good move for them overall.

Kwpolska 6y ago
“Apple Computer” wasn’t how anyone referred to the company, basically ever. Nobody calls it “Apple Inc.” today (outside of legal stuff, of course). But I doubt anyone called the fintech “Wise” before the rebrand.

usaphp 6y ago

Just wanted to say that I absolutely love the UX/UI of transferwise, every time I need to do a transfer I am honestly enjoying the process, well done.

zlwaterfield 6y ago

I love TransferWise, use it all the time. Honestly, pretty surprised by this rebrand, I don't get why they did it.

arthurcolle 6y ago

The logo is very bad. Different angles for different letters? It's comically bad. (is it flatter S supposed to remind you of bank wires) ? Also, top Google search is this: https://www.wise.us/ https://www.wise.us/ Unbelievably bad rebrand, shockingly so Naming collisions is such an ugly state of affairs

simonklitj 6y ago
Woah, that's a rough collision too.
cl3misch 6y ago
Am I the only one thinking this collision might be intentional?
DangerousPie 6y ago
Well the top Google result may obviously change once their site becomes more established. The name collision isn't great, but then again Transferwise was already somewhat of a collision with the other Wise anyway.
fumblebee 6y ago
I can't help but see the Visa logo when I look at the new Wise logo. Intentional, maybe?
JacobSuperslav 6y ago
i think this is a genius rebranding considering the similarity of the word Wise to Visa.

andreareina 6y ago

I wish they had the capability to issue virtual card numbers. I don't even need temporary ones, just want the capability to segregate my spending into separate accounts.

mmerlin 6y ago
Virtual Cards can help you pinpoint which of your service providers got hacked, plus minimise the amount of OTHER services you need to update payment details for, after a card number going AWOL

mamborambo 6y ago

Although the rebranding is probably unnecessary, it is still a good move if the company has ambition beyond fund transfer --- perhaps into alternative financial services, non-bank assets, or other types of nomadic fund application. I have to agree there are too many geographical restrictions in today's financial systems, and if their strong brand position can help to loosen those grips a little, more power to them.

MaheshC 6y ago

I use transferwise as my main bank. The one thing I need from them now is the possibility to invest my borderless account funds in ETF or other guaranteed capital investment vehicles. I hope this rebrand means they are heading in that direction.

riffraff 6y ago
I've literally asked for this in every user satisfaction survey they've sent me for the last 5 years, and like you I hope this is a sign they're heading in this direction. The competition in this space is large, but there are a ton of trade offs between various services and in many countries (hungary, for one) the local alternatives simply suck.

joecool1029 6y ago

Someone didn't do their trademark research. Out on the east coast US (like NYC metro) anyone hearing the name Wise isn't going to think 'transfer service', they are going to think potato chips: https://www.wisesnacks.com https://www.wisesnacks.com

arcticbull 6y ago
I see this like Delta Faucets and Delta Airlines. I've never had any trouble thinking of one when I meant the other, and I suspect the same is true here.
MagnumPIG 6y ago
I assume they did and figured nobody would mistake a chips brand with an FX service. Legally I'm sure it's not a problem.
- sumedh 6y ago
  There is also another wise.us service.
mmerlin 6y ago
Trademarks have 40+ categories. Look up how many trademarks with the word "acme" in them can happily coexist.

keiferski 6y ago

Apologies, but let me put on my cynical hat for a moment to make a joke. Nothing could be more representative of modernity than the fact that typing wise into your browser bar will now direct you to a financial services company.

kylehotchkiss 6y ago

I got married abroad and that often implies needing a service like TransferWise. When I first got married, I actually thought I’d need to use hsbc (who sort of support online wire transfers) but thanks to TransferWise, I’ve never once had to send a wire transfer. TransferWise sends money more quickly to my wife than I can send between my own bank accounts in USA. Very reasonable (but sometimes random) KYC (make sure to maintain your drivers license at a permanent address where you can receive mail in your home country). I really wish them all the best with the new brand and am excited for the new products! Even when I’m just being a tourist, the debit card and borderless card make working in different currencies a breeze. My only wish is that the debit card issued to us citizens didn’t default to dollar payments but could intelligently mark itself as the local currency. Remember that when a foreign terminal tries to bill you in USD, the bank the card reader is connected to makes profit from marking up exchange rates.

emp_ 6y ago

Great Timing! USERS BEWARE, my story I used the service for two years and just had the most surreal disastrous experience since the year flipped. I religiously send a the same (about 5k USD) to my home country every month so I can pay my mortgage and other bills I left when moved to NA. 2021 arrives, I start a transfer on January 27, days pass, nothing. I contact support 10 days later (of something that in the past 24 months took 3 days), they say I need to prove I’m the recipient so I ask them to cancel the transfer so I can start it from my personal account instead so both accounts match and no documentation is needed, another 10 days go by, still nothing. I contact support again and found out that they withheld my deposit because they needed me to give, bear with me, POWER OF ATTORNEY among tons of other more resonable documentation to the destination country bank, so instead of signing my life away I cancel the transfer again: 26 days an counting TransferWise held my money which I will NEVER deal with again and tell this tale whenever I get a chance.

climb_stealth 6y ago
Thanks for the warning! Have you decided on what you are going to use instead?
- emp_ 6y ago
  Going to try Xoom next, looking at conversion rates plus the big name behind (Paypal) which is not short of horror stories themselves.
esperent 6y ago
Unfortunately I have come to believe there is no banking service that won't do things like this at some point. For example, I used to swear by N26 until I had a small issue (involving some tiny amount <€50). I told support very politely that I wasn't happy. Their response was full nuclear "pay everything immediately or we're sending your details to a collection agency". I was amazed, I had been a loyal customer for years and this was such a disproportionate response to something tiny. I had been intending to try and work things out,but from that response I simply withdrew all the money from my account and closed it. Now I use Transferwise, and have had no such problems, so far. But I'm under no illusions that I won't have problems in the future.

johnisgood 6y ago

The reason I am NOT USING TransferWise is that I encountered something strange. To obtain their debit card, one of the requirements is that I add money to my account. So far so good. When I am on that page where I can enter the amount I want to add, there is always a minimum amount given. This is not in itself a problem. The problem is that - to my surprise - this varies by a LOT, and I have no clue why. Sometimes it is 5 USD, sometimes it is 20 USD. As in, sometimes I can add 5 USD or above, but not less, and sometimes I can only add 20 USD or above, but not less. By now I went through[1]: 5 USD -> 20 USD -> 1 USD -> 5 USD. Why does this happen? I do not know the actual values as I was using another currency, but you get the point. [1] I kept checking only for 2 days, so those values were changing this way within those 48 hours max.

refurb 6y ago
Sounds you got caught up in A/B testing maybe? It’s to TW advantage to have a higher minimum deposit, but the drop off is likely higher at higher amounts. They probably test high amounts regularly. But as a single customer you shouldn’t have seen different amounts. That’s just confusing.
- johnisgood 6y ago
  Yeah, it confused the heck out of me, and made me reluctant to use it, because who knows what else they may change. The differences were huge in my currency. :/ I checked just now, it is back to the initial value, the value that I encountered first.

simonebrunozzi 6y ago

"Horror" stories abound in this thread (of course, all is relative; first world problems; etc). My view is mostly that customer service is broken. Everywhere. A few days ago I wrote and published a "corporate memo" where I make the case that a company such as Stripe could tackle this problem and solve it [0]. I really hope that someone will eventually find a way to provide proper customer service, without resorting to these terrible practices when something gets weird. [0]: https://simon.medium.com/stripes-opportunity-reinventing-customer-service-babde2febce4 https://simon.medium.com/stripes-opportunity-reinventing-cus...

aurbano 6y ago
I'm not sure if you're directing this comment at TransferWise or at companies in general, but I'll reply from TransferWise's point of view - Disclaimer, I'm an engineer at TransferWise, but this is my own opinion. TransferWise takes customer support extremely seriously with an in-house team of support reps who are trained in all of our features. On top of that each team may have one or more CS "champions" who are the bridge between product teams and customer support. These champions usually know the product inside-out, and are in slack channels with the dev teams. So when an issue is not a customer misunderstanding something, and turns out to be an actual bug, the CS rep will work with the engineers to find a workaround, and to get a fix deployed as fast as possible - all while the customer knows exactly what's going on. Bottomline is that I agree that customer support is hard, and very expensive. But it doesn't have to be broken, and I don't think it is at TransferWise (well, Wise now)
- throwaway34543 6y ago
  It's interesting to see your take on how things work however from reading around it would appear that Wise is pretty trigger happy to terminate accounts and almost anti crypto. It's interesting to see things like https://jimmymow.medium.com/announcing-strike-global-2392b908f611 https://jimmymow.medium.com/announcing-strike-global-2392b90... and https://pagofx.com/ https://pagofx.com/

dharma1 6y ago

Why mess up a great brand? TransferWise rolls off the tongue just fine and does what it says. This is like Facebook rebranding to Book. Hubris.

cik 6y ago

I might be one of the rare people who loves Transferwise? I've used them for 5 years, to transfer money from multiple businesses, and personally. I've sent money between businesses, to people internationally, paid for office rent, developers, heck I've done transfers to myself between countries with it. I ran into KYC, which is only fair. They required proof of funds which included a letter from my accountant. They assigned a named case worker with a phone number, who I could call. 10/10 would do - and have done again, as recently as two weeks ago. I love this company.

lm28469 6y ago
I also loves it and I've been using it for 5 years. I regularly transfer money internationally and it works in 24-48 hours for a few dollars per transfer

pmlnr 6y ago

WHY!? "Wise" is unsearchable, it's a common word, this is an idiotic move.

ElectricMind 6y ago

Ironically not wise. I think Seth Godin will not be pleased. This is against niche philosophy - I was good at something then I wanted to do everything - then I went bankrupt. I like TransferWise but this is ridiculous move.

EastSmith 6y ago

Hope they stop sending my data to Facebook. I am their customer for a little over an year now and I was very disapointed to find out they send a lot of stuff to Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity/ https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity/).

zed88 6y ago

Whatever the name, always loved their service.

trestenhortz 6y ago

Wise is far less memorable and searchable and identifiable and unique than TransferWise.

AlessandroA 6y ago

The new Wise logo reminds me a lot of the Visa logo — probably not a coincidence: https://wise.com/public-resources/assets/logos/wise/brand_logo.svg https://wise.com/public-resources/assets/logos/wise/brand_lo...

3np 6y ago

I just wish they would not inherit the horrible security practices from the incumbents. Opening a new account, the happy path steers the user to 2FA via SMS (which can't be disabled once enabled). The only other option is via their proprietary iOS or Android app. Please, please give us at least TOTP, if not FIDO U2F or Webauthn. SMS is inherently insecure (arguably worse than e-mail) and I'm not going to download your app.

platty 6y ago

Justin Timberlake: "Drop the 'transfer', just 'wise', it's cleaner"

ajonit 6y ago

For the kind of service they provide, transfer.com would have been better. (Of course if it all it was possible) Nonetheless, not a bad idea, as companies grow they all want the shortest possible brandable .com domain. I remember seomoz.com rebranded to moz.com for few million $$.

Nightvein 6y ago

I was trying to figure out a way to move my GBP from my US based paypal account through TransferWise to avoid the Paypal FX rate, but couldn't figure out how...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]