They are all grown up and sophisticated now
Site favourite Transferwise changed their name recently, to Wise. I guess they want to emphasise that they don’t just do transfers, but in fact have a number of different offerings for consumers. This came to my attention because they sent me a number of emails about it, but also because I used them to send money to my daughter in Canada last week, and used my virtual account in the UK to receive funds. Aside from the rebranding, the site hasn’t changed much.
So what do Wise do now?
Well, they still make it very easy to send money internationally. Once you have the account set up (you need to sign up, provide your My Number info, and accept a registered delivery letter to confirm your address) you can easily add new accounts to pay money to overseas.
Transfers are pretty quick once set up: you arrange the transter, pay the money to Wise by debit card, credit card, or bank transfer, and it usually gets to the recipient instantly, within an hour, or within a day or so. The way it works is that Wise has local accounts in both countries, and after receiving the money to their Japanese account, they send the money from their local account in the destination country, thus avoiding international fees. It’s pretty clever.
Banking and debits and tigers, oh my
The other services provided by Wise are virtual bank accounts in other countries (I have one in the UK, and one in the US). They are, as you might imagine, local bank accounts with the correct sort codes and account numbers, etc. You can give them to people and businesses to send money to as if you had an account with a local bank, without having to jump through all the hoops that can be necessary to open an account with an actual bank. This is especially useful for countries that you don’t have a connection to (like me and the US).
Finally, Wise provide a debit card that can be used in Japan and overseas. I haven’t had a chance to try mine out in other countries (thanks, pandemic) but it seems like it might be a good replacement for my Shinsei card that I used to rely on (Shinsei stopped providing international service a couple of years).
Very much recommended
I’m a big fan of Wise. I’ve been a customer since they started, and got the debit card and virtual accounts as soon as they were available. The transfer service in particular has been a lifesaver, and I have used it dozens of times to the UK, Sweden, Spain, the US, Canada, and Singapore.
Full disclosure, if you sign up via a link from this site we will receive a small commission, but I would recommend them anyway.
How about you, are you using Wise?
Since last summer, a common question from americans is “how can I cash my stimulus check(s)?” –a problem for those who don’t happen to have a US account of some kind. (Some places allow customers to take a picture of a check, and send that, so no physical mailing required.)
Does anyone know if Wise can cash those checks?
Someone tried that already 🙂
You can make bank transfers to the Wise virtual US bank accounts, but not deposit physical cheques.
Huge fan of Wise and have found they have a special “large amount transfer support department” which came in very handy when doing a 3-country/currency transfer and exchange after selling some equity in a privately-held company . The debit card is great when ordering stuff online in various countries as uses the appropriate currency without mysterious conversion rates.