Wise money transfer review & guide

Exchange rates, payment options, step-by-step guide, transfer fees, and all you need to know about {Competitor}.

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Everything you need to know

Wise (Formerly Transferwise) review

Sending money online can be worrisome to many people. Is it safe to send? Am I paying too much to transfer money online?

Wise is an online money transfer service that allows customers in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the Eurozone to send money to more than 40 countries internationally.

The service makes transferring money quicker, easier, and less expensive than other companies. Send money using your smartphone, tablet, or online through the Wise online transfer service.

Payment Methods Available with Wise

When you send money online with TransferWise, you can fund the transfer using:

Bank transfer
Debit card
Credit card

The person receiving the money has a few options for getting their funds, including deposit into a bank account, deposit into a digital wallet, or picking up cash at a nearby partner money transfer facility. And if you need to send money somewhere immediately, you can choose the “Express” option for an instant transfer of funds.

How much can I transfer with Wise?

With Wise you need to pass different tiers of verification to be able to send higher amounts of money. To increase your sending limits you will need to provide your personal information and upload certain documents.

Tier 1

You can send up to:

$999 daily
$2,999 weekly
$10,999 monthly and
$18,000 every six months

Tier 2

You can send up to:

$6,000 daily
$20,000 monthly
$36,000 every six months

Tier 3

You can send up to:

$9,999 daily
$30,000 monthly
$60,000 every six months

How long does a transfer usually take with Wise?

Every transfer will take a different amount of time depending on a few things. Wise moves your money as quickly as possible, but the speed will be affected by things like the currency you’re sending to and from, how you pay for it, and banking hours.

Whatever currency you’re sending, converting your money can always take up to 3-5 business days.

Wise Transfer Fees

The fees Wise charges to transfer money depend on several different factors, including:

How much money you’re sending
Where you’re sending money to
How you are paying for your transfer
The currency you’re converting your money to
The way you choose to transfer the money

Wise allows users to send money either Economy or Express. Economy often has lower fees - including no fees for your first transfer - but takes longer to reach the recipient.

f you’re sending Economy from Canada to the Philippines, using local currency, the transfer will take up to three days. Wise charges you $2.99 if you send less than $500, but there is no charge for sending more than $500.

If you need the money to get from Canada to the Philippines immediately, the Express option costs $6.99 regardless of how much you’re sending.

Express transfers happen immediately, so they’re great for people who need to send money for emergencies. However, they do carry additional fees that can add up the more often you send money with this method.

There also may be situations where Wise will charge you additional fees, such as when you send money to a recipient in a foreign country but they will receive that money in United States dollars.

Pros and Cons of using Wise

Pros

Easy to use with user-friendly online applications and mobile app.

Those who receive money can collect their money at any Wise partner bank, including nearly all big banking networks in the countries where Wise is available.

Multiple payout options, including bank transfer, mobile wallet, home delivery, and pickup at over 140,000 locations.

Currency exchange rate locks in when you start the transfer, protecting you from fluctuations before the money gets to the recipient.

Text message alerts for you and the recipient so you both can track when money has been sent and received.

If you are unhappy with the service you receive from TransferWise, you get a refund on all the fees you paid.

Its website is secure, meaning you can be confident you’re transferring money securely.

Cons

Often not the cheapest money transfer option, with exchange rates that are lower than other services.

Those who receive money can collect their money at any Wise partner bank, including nearly all big banking networks in the countries where Wise is available.

You may be limited in how you can send money and how the recipient gets the money depending on where you’re sending money.

Daily and monthly limits on how much you can send without going through extra verification steps.

Higher fees for express transfers. You need to pay much more in fees if you want to fund your transfer with debit or credit card.

How it works

How does Wise make money?

Wise makes its money by charging customers to send money from one country to another. These fees are what you pay based on where you’re sending money, how much you’re sending, how fast you want the money to get there, and how you’re paying to send the money.

The fees Wise charges are higher than some of their competitors, so shop around before deciding what service to use to send money overseas.

Wise exchange rates

Wise’s exchange rates are competitive with other online money transfer services, typically coming in between 0.5% and 2% worse than general market rates.

The company not only makes money with these exchange rates that are worse than the market, as well as additional fees charged by TransferWise.

For example, if you want to send $500 from Canada to the Philippines, you will pay between $2.50 and $10 more to send that money with Wise over base exchange rates.

The company also charges you fees for sending money instantly with a credit or debit card, as well as fees for transferring money to the Philippines in U.S dollars instead of the native currency.

Safety and security

Is Wise money transfer secure?

Wise is considered a very secure and trustworthy online money transfer provider.

The company is a registered Money Services Business with the United States Department of the Treasury and is a licensed money transmitter. Wise also is authorized to operate in all Canadian provinces except Quebec (although this is coming soon).

Wise offers a variety of safeguards and security measures to protect your information and your money, including:

Security features

Wise offers a variety of safeguards and security measures to protect your information and your money, including:

All Wise accounts are verified using a variety of different measures, helping keep them safe and secure while also preventing fraud.
In order to send money through Wise, users must submit certain documents to prove their identity.
Wise uses manual and automated fraud detection techniques and risk management procedures, helping them detect and eliminate suspicious account activity.
All transactions are protected by strong online security measures, including 256-bit SSL encryption with a 2048-bit signature.

With Wise you can send money from the following countries

The Wise app and online transfer service lets you send money from the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the USA.

Using Wise money transfer services, you can also end money to the following countries around the globe: Argentina, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Uruguay and Vietnam.