Wise reports jump in third-quarter revenues

Wise reported a jump in revenues on Wednesday after more than 4m customers used its services during the quarter.

Updating on third-quarter trading, the fintech said revenues had risen 34% year-on-year to £149.8m, while the number of active personal customers grew 26% to 4.1m. Wise said it was the first time that more than 4m customers had completed cross-border transactions in a single quarter.

Volumes rose to £20.6bn, a 15% improvement on the second quarter and a 36% year-on-year jump.

Looking to the rest of the year, Wise said it expected the take rate to be "slightly lower" in the second half compared to the first because of price reductions. However, that was expected to be "more than offset" by higher revenues, meaning revenue growth for the year as a whole was likely to be around 30%.

As at 1015 GMT, shares in Wise were ahead 4% at 698.6p.

Kristo Karmann, co-founder and chief executive, said Wise was continuing to make "good progress on our mission to make moving and managing money across borders faster, easier, cheaper and more transparent".

"We dropped prices, sped up payments and expanded access to Wise’s products and features in more countries and through more partners."

The customer price for the quarter was 0.60%, down nine basis points year-on-year, while the amount of instant transfers rose 11 percentage points to 45%.

Wise, which has a market value of around £7bn, joined the London Stock Exchange last July in a direct listing. Unlike a traditional initial public offering, there is no public offer of existing or new class A shares at the time of admission, meaning no price range was set, nor were investment banks required to underwrite the offering.

The London-headquartered firm, which was formerly called TransferWise, was founded by Estonians Karmann and Taavet Hinrikus in 2011. Hinrikus stepped down as chair at the end of 2021.