Wise was born out of frustration thanks to the hidden commissions that we have all been forced to pay, sending money abroad does not seem to be so expensive. The banks proclaim "free transfers", "0% commission". It even seems that money flows freely, but reality is far from that. It is pure propaganda.
Wise eliminates all these injustices, allowing people to send money abroad at the lowest possible cost. Using only the real change and small commissions, always explicit - the headaches came to an end and the revolution began. As everything happened Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Käärmann are two friends who believe that money has been made to flow freely. However, with the absence of a global currency, this does not happen. An epiphany helped them save thousands of pounds. Taavet worked for Skype in Estonia and was paid in euros, although he lived in London, and Kristo worked in London, but he had a mortgage in euros in Estonia. It was then that they idealized a simple scheme. Every month they checked the average market change in Reuters to find the real change - and while the Kristo moved his pounds to the Taavet account in the United Kingdom, the Taavet transferred the equivalent amount to his friend's account in euros. Both obtained the necessary amount and none of them gave a penny for the hidden fees charged by the banks. There must be others in our situation, "was the epiphany, and the rest is Wise.
How does Wise work?
Wise is a company that has offices and accounts in several countries of the world and to transfer your money to other countries you pay a Brazilian bank bill, for example, and the Brazilian office receives the money and advises to any European office that already they can already deposit to the destination account. In this move, money does not cross countries and do not have to pay tax. And to get even better, as the transaction is done between companies, the quote is COMMERCIAL and not the tourism.
Taavet Hinrikus was the first Skype employee. He had the opportunity to attend from the beginning of one of the most incredible stories on the Internet, which has forever changed the telecom industry. Taavet is a native of Estonia and, after a few years, was transferred to London. He still received his salary in Estonia, but his expenses were almost all in London, so he needed every month to transfer his money to a bank in the United Kingdom, and for that he always paid a fee for the bank and the conversion was used a rate always different from what he saw on the specialized websites.
Tips for using the Wise website
If you travel or live abroad and need to exchange money and you have a relative or friend at your destination, you can transfer or request the amount required by the Wise website or app with the COMERCIAL currency quote
Which currencies can be purchased?
One of the cool things about Wise is the amount of coins they offer their customers. Euro, real, pound, dollar, yen, australian and canadian dollar, czech crown and more. Seriously, I'm very curious to use their service and I really wanted to know if any of you have ever used it. Leandro dies of loves for him and, as I rely heavily on the suggestions of my readers, I make a point of recommending and trying to help many other travelers!
In 2010, Taavet met another Estonian named Kristo Käärmann, who worked in a consulting firm and had also been transferred to London. Kristo had a loan from Estonia, and so every month he did the opposite, sending money from the UK to his bank in Estonia. It was not long before they had an idea: instead of the two paying high fees to transfer money from one country to another, Taavet would transfer money from his account in Estonia to Kristo's bank account in the same country and Kristo would transfer money to Taavet for his bank account in London. They would make two local transfers, paying much less in fees. And to be fair with the conversion rate between currencies, they chose to use the average between buy and sell, which was easy to check by referring to the Reuters site.
After a few months of doing this, they began to hear from other Estonians that this solution also solved a problem they faced. They began to think then that this could be a problem that hit many more people than they imagined. And that this could happen daily in many countries around the world.
Thus was born Wise, founded in 2011 by Taavet and Kristo, and today transfers resources among more than 50 countries (including Brazil), using the same logic. Some have called it the Uber of international transfers and may be a good explanation for what they do. Imagine that Paul is in the UK and wants to transfer the equivalent of 300 pounds to his son, George, who is in India. Suppose now that Maria, who lives in the USA, wants to transfer 300 dollars to her mother Helena, who lives in Brazil. Wise will get Paulo's reals and deposit into Helena's account, making a transfer between banks here in Brazil, all in Reais. And he'll get Maria's dollars, which are in the US, and transfer to Jorge's account, making a transfer in dollars, within the US. Thus, two local transfers will be made, one in Brazil and the other in the US, both of which are much cheaper than an international transfer. And Wise will charge both of them a fee, which is almost one-tenth of what is normally paid to the banks. So she finds people who are willing to do the same operations, only in opposite directions, and do business between them. Hence the association with what Uber does.
In order to avoid money laundering problems, Taavet says that when registering a client, the company asks for all the information that the country's regulations require, including those related to money laundering. According to him, Wise does the whole process called Know Your Client (Know Your Client).