Safety is one of the most important aspects of anything related to your money. It’s natural to be extra careful and try to get as much details as possible when looking for online financial service. If you are reading this article then most probably you have questions about Transferwise that has changed it’s name to Wise recently. Is it secure and reliable partner for your money transfers? Yes, it definitely is and this article reveals various facts that proves that.

Note: TransferWise officially changed it’s name to Wise in April 2021

What is Wise?

Wise is peer-to-peer money transfer service founded in January 2011 by Taavet Hinrikus (Skype’s first employee) and Kristo Kaarmann from Estonia. They strongly believed that international money transfers are too expensive and should become significantly affordable to people. With a brilliant idea of how to make it possible they managed to create service that gained popularity and earned good reputation very quickly.

Officially Wise is money services company registered in UK with HM Revenue and Customs certificate number 12591871. They are authorised by the FCA (UK Financial Conduct Authority) as a payments institution with reference 571669. This certificate gives them same legal right to receive and send fund transfers as regular banks do.

Who are behind the company?

The company is covered by various investors and strategic angel investors. There are just few of them:

• VALAR Ventures – Led by PayPal founder and Facebook’s first investor Peter Thiel
• Max Levchin (co-founder of PayPal)
• Index Ventures – leading European venture capital firm active in technology ventures
• Kima Ventures – French-based venture capital fund
• Errol Damelin (founder of Wonga)

Awards and Media

Wise has been recognized as innovative and extremely successful start up:

1. The winner of “Estonia’s Best E-service” contest in 2013
2. UK magazine London Loves Business ranked Wise the most revolutionary seed company in the finance technology sector.
3. Named as one of London’s 20 hottest IT start-ups by The Guardian
4. Wired UK picked Wise as “Start up of the week”
5. Named as start up to watch by TechCrunch at Seedcamp’s 2012 US Demo Day
6. Wise named Best Middleweight Startup at The Europas

Customers feedback

Hundreds of people are sharing their positive feedback and experience:

1. The money always reaches day earlier than promised
2. They have brilliant customer service.
3. The service is damn cheap compared to everything I have used so far.
4. Finally something transparent and cheap.
5. I was surprised by the fastness of the transaction, less than 4 hours the first time although the second time took 12 hours.
6. Easy, straightforward and money saving!
7. I was a bit sceptical at the start but I must say everything worked perfectly and the website is very user-friendly.
8. I have used it for amounts between €1500-2000 and it works flawlessly
9. Every time you make a transfer with Wise you deserve to get yourself a present

It’s very difficult to find any negative feedback. There are just few minor complaints:

1. It’s not possible to pay with debit card for transfers of over £2000
2. They didn’t replay to one of my emails
3. Transfers could be faster (less than one day)

Company in figures

Take a look at that interesting figures that speak for themselves:

1. April 2012 – Wise said it raised seed funding of $1.3 million in a round led by IA Ventures, Index Ventures, PayPal co-founder Max Levchin and a group of strategic angel investors.
2. February 2012 – the company announced that it had transacted €10m in its first year, representing €500,000 in saved fees for its users
3. May 2013 – Wise Secures $6 Million in Series A Funding. Leading US venture fund Valar Ventures.
4. October 2013 – doubled total transfers to £250m in just four months (that’s around £1m a day)
5. Wise are planning to provide 1000 start-ups with vouchers for free money transfers of up to $100,000.
6. June 2014 – Wise receives $25m investment from Sir Richard Branson, Peter Thiel, Directory Ventures and IA ventures.

Conclusion

As you can see Wise is well financed and well recognizable company with thousands of satisfied customers. You can imagine how many people should trust them in order to reach £1m/day transfers rate. You can feel absolutely safe sending your money with Wise.

If you still don’t have an account it’s a good time to get registered with FREE TRANSFER COUPON and make your transfer wisely.