Income at UK fintech Wise jumps as payment volumes soar
Money transfer firm Wise posted an increase to fourth quarter income driven by growth in international payments.
The fintech, which enables digital payments for consumers and businesses, booked an underlying income of £350m for the fourth quarter. This was a 13 per cent increase from the previous quarter.
Cross-border volumes soared 28 per cent to £39.1bn, up from £30.6bn.
This came despite cross-border take rates – the percentage of the total cost of a transaction that is taken by the payment processor as a fee – reducing 14 basis points to 0.53 per cent.
But, this resulted in Wise missing fourth quarter revenue consensus by one per cent.
Instant transfers grew three per cent to 65 per cent.
Wise said its underlying profit before tax margin was around 20 per cent for the year. The firm expects it to be near the top of its 13-16 per cent target range for 2026.
The London-based fintech boasted 17 per cent annual growth in active customers, reaching over 9m.
Kristo Käärmann, co-founder and chief executive officer at Wise, said: “We ended the financial year taking Wise to even more people and businesses around the world. We launched Wise in Mexico, allowing Mexicans to be able to send money to the rest of the world with Wise.
“It’s exciting that we now benefit from two-way flows with Mexico. In Hong Kong, we rolled out the Wise Business account, enabling businesses to get paid globally. And in Latin America, we announced a new Wise Platform partnership with Itaú Unibanco, one of the region’s largest banks, enabling instant cross-border payments directly from the Itaú app.
He added: “We continue to move closer towards achieving money without borders by investing in our long-term growth: we recently launched our popular Interest feature in Australia, helping more customers earn returns by placing their money in funds backed by government-guaranteed assets.
“We also announced the opening of a new hub in Hyderabad to drive growth in India, building on recent office expansions in London, Tallinn and Singapore.”