Life Admin
Wise
Wise — most people still call it TransferWise, honestly — is what happens when two Estonians get fed up with bank exchange rates. Taavet Hinrikus was getting paid in euros while living in London; Kristo Käärmann needed euros for his Estonian mortgage while earning in pounds. So they just... swapped currencies directly with each other at the real exchange rate, skipping the banks' markup entirely. Then they realized other people had the same problem and built a company around it.
Founded in 2011, Wise now moves money across 160+ countries, charging a flat fee instead of burying costs in a worse exchange rate. They've since added a multi-currency account and card, so you can hold pounds, dollars, euros, whatever, and spend without converting each time.
It's a transfer company. Not exciting on paper. But it's saved a lot of people from the quiet theft of bad bank exchange rates.
Founded in 2011, Wise now moves money across 160+ countries, charging a flat fee instead of burying costs in a worse exchange rate. They've since added a multi-currency account and card, so you can hold pounds, dollars, euros, whatever, and spend without converting each time.
It's a transfer company. Not exciting on paper. But it's saved a lot of people from the quiet theft of bad bank exchange rates.
Address
Hungary
Website
wise.com