Wise hikes guidance as customers shift £27bn across borders
Money transfer firm Wise has hiked its guidance for the year after a surge in cross border transactions boosted profits in the second quarter of the year.
In a trading update, London-listed Wise said it had recorded a 50 per cent jump in payments as customers shifted £27bn across borders in the three months to September.
The rise in payments drove income up 73 per cent on the same period last year to £229m, the firm said, causing it to lift its total income growth guidance between 55-60 per cent for the full year.
The figures are a boon to the firm after a turbulent few months in which its chief Kristo Käärmann has been hit by an investigation from the UK financial watchdog over tax failings, and its Abu Dhabi subsidiary slapped with a fine from regulators over money laundering failings.
Käärmann said in a statement this morning it had been a bumper period for the firm.
“This quarter 5.5 million customers moved £27bn with us, 50 per cent more than in Q2 last year and for the second consecutive quarter more than half our payments were instant,” he said.
“The Wise Account and Wise Business products continue to see good levels of adoption and this increased engagement with our product, higher volumes and faster speeds are a result of the longer term investments that we have been making.”
Kaarmann added that “extreme macroeconomic conditions” had caused it to hike fees for customers in the period but it was looking to bring them back down.
Shares in Wise rose above one per cent this morning on the update.
Wise is among a crop of firms to have benefitted from a boost in cross-border payments as overseas workers look to send money to family overseas to help fight soaring costs.
Remittance firm ACE Money Transfer found recently that countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and the Philippines had all seen a surge in payments overseas.