I just started using Wise to transfer money across international borders. I am so sick of all the bank fees and the absurd conversion rates that my banks are giving me – and in this day and age, it’s almost risible that they make so much money of remittances and other cross border retail transactions. There had to be a better way, and there was – it was Wise.
I’m not selling the service to you, but it’s pretty apparent that it’s better. The UI is super well designed, it’s intuitive and easy to use, and most of all, the rates are a LOT better than what you would get going bank to bank.
Naturally once I started using the product and liked it, I immediately wondered if I could do an equity investment in it (my golden rule of only investing in products / services that I use and like).
Turns out WISE just went public in London through a direct investment in July.
Here’s my investment thesis for investing in wise:
- Pros
- Much better rates on remittances than traditional banks (from experience)
- Nice clean UI and site sign up
- Strong name recognition amongst high earning peer community (stanford alumni)
- Remittance is a huge market that still sucks
- Integrations across countries is not easy – so may provide a moat
- nearly 70 per cent of its account openings originate via word-of-mouth recommendations!
- Did a direct listing (respect!)
- Cons
- Valuation is rich – it’s the largest fintech company on the LSE but it’s not as rich as square or PayPal. But then again it does a lot less than they do
- Lots of competitors in this market – and low barriers to entry?
Net net I am probably going to invest since I love the service and think it’s great.