Wise (LSE:WISE) has reportedly been forced to place a freeze on onboarding new business clients across the United Kingdom and Europe because of “high demand” for services. This latest update comes after the Fintech firm had “deactivated” all US business cards this past week.
Wise, which offers money transfer services and accounts to consumers and business organizations, has shared an update on its official website, noting that it has “temporarily paused onboarding” for new businesses across the European Union and the United Kingdom, where it makes more than half of its earnings/revenues.
The pause on the onboarding has come after Wise stated this past week that it would be disabling its business cards in the United States because of “operational changes” that had affected the account information clients use to receive dollars. The two incidents are reportedly not related to each other.
Wise’s management confirmed to media outlets that they are “temporarily pausing onboarding new Wise Business customers in a few markets due to high demand.”
Business accounts have reportedly made up £190 million of its £846 million revenue this past year. Revenues from the business unit increased by 50% in the past year.
In an update shared with CI, Wise has noted the following:
“We aim to ensure that all businesses joining us get the support they expect and deserve from us. For a few days, we asked businesses in the UK to join a waitlist due to high demand. As of November 10, we are starting to onboard in the UK again and are now working to resume onboarding businesses in Europe as a priority. Businesses already using Wise Business are not impacted by this. We’re continuously investing in our processes to speed up our onboarding operations, such as further automation when we require documents from our customers.”
As reported in September 2023, Swift, a global financial messaging service that is used by just about everyone to transfer value, has partnered with Wise – a stealth bank that got its start in low-cost transfers.
According to a statement by Swift, the partnership will enable users to complete transfers using Wise by leveraging their enterprise service built for banks and big firms. Swift says this means that customers will benefit from the Wise service without making any internal changes.
Wise will gain access to Swift’s cloud and API connectivity and Payment Pre-validation, including a payment status tracker, which Wise will update for an end-to-end view across both networks.
Wise’s global payments network enables more than 57% of customers’ cross-border payments to settle instantly and more than 90% to settle in under an hour.
Steve Naudé, Managing Director of Wise Platform, said that banks face a number of challenges when managing cross-border payments, and this may mean incompatible tech or old infrastructure. By using Wise’s established global network, they are enabling banks to “innovate effortlessly.”
Naudé said:
“Our network, combined with Swift’s extensive reach and trackability, will make international payments more convenient, faster and lower cost for banks, without necessitating a major tech build.”
