As the embedded video alludes, it's not that revolutionary an idea to pool transactions and use local resources to fulfill more cheaply if possible.<p>That said, the world is full of wildly successful companies that just executed well on not very revolutionary ideas, and they provide real value that was largely absent before they grew to prominence. Sometimes it's not about doing something new, it's about doing it <i>well</i>, or doing it in a way that allows more people access.
I've been using this for the past 6 months. It works really nicely and removes a lot of friction - it's just like sending money to another local account. I've paid people in Netherlands, Australia, Germany and they recently started allowing US$ paid to Ukraine, so I've been able to pay software developers there.
Transferwise is a great service, I use it myself. They even give you a volume discount if you ask for it.<p>But what really surprises me is that it got to where it is at all. If you look at it, their business model is not revolutionary. Their prices are not cheaper than for example UKForex (OzForex), who provide the exact same service, and were around years before.<p>The business is simply a click interface for exchanging money; you send in your currency, and they send in the agreed amount to the other side. The price difference between these shops is minimal.<p>It could not be simpler. I've traded currencies as a professional, there's not a whole lot of other steps behind the scenes.<p>But I doubt most people have heard of UKForex. Transferwise however are on billboards everywhere, acting as though they invented the idea of swapping one currency for another. And acting as though you are cutting out the middle man, which you are not. You still need a bank.<p>Well played to them though, it seems they've used some of that startup hype attitude to get themselves a nice little business.
Hello all.<p>I used transferwise in November to move money to Japan.<p>The exchange rate applied was the actual fucking exchange rate. I paid Transferwsise a couple of quid.<p>Worth every fucking penny. Worth swearing. Use Transferwise.
This is great, as someone who frequently transfers money from the US to Canada I wish I had known about this sooner. Hopefully they can actually make some money.
Interesting that they use the word expat instead of immigrant. I don't think if these two were from Asia/Africa they would have been called expats.
While I haven't used TranferWise yet, I think it's a brilliant idea (and yes, their exchange rates look phenomenal)!<p>There's also a service called PeerTransfer for foreign tuition payments that essentially aggregates outgoing payments, and buys forex in bulk.<p>Another cool development in the area is Visa (The Card issuer) opening up their APIs to allow direct Card-Card transfers like with Square Cash when they just started out. Barring regulatory hurdles, this method (Card-Card transaction using the Visa/MasterCard/Amex network) is probably the most efficient way of sending money across currencies.
It would be nice if this could be applied to places where I don't have a bank account and just need say, $500USD converted into another country's currency. My bank here allows me to withdraw twice from foreign bank ATMs but I have a feeling they are messing with exchange rates and I'm still stuck with a bad deal. I won't even bother with real exchanges in the States or in the other country. Everything just feels like highway robbery.
Read about some challenges they are facing as many other money transfer startups. It's actually a very hot niche at the moment.<p><a href="http://uladzislau.com/online-money-transfer-startups/" rel="nofollow">http://uladzislau.com/online-money-transfer-startups/</a>
Transferwise is by far the best international money transfer service I have ever used.<p>I regularly move money between Euros and Pounds Sterling, sometimes into Australian dollars too. These are typically not large monetary amounts, maybe up to a few thousand Euros, but often just a couple of hundred.<p>I haven't specifically counted, but I gueas I've made around 25 transfers with Transferwise. Compared to using banks directly, and even other "traditional" Forex services over the last 16 years, Transferwise is fast and very low friction.<p>I did have to verify my identity once my transfered totals had exceeded £15k, but that has been the only delay. They just do a very, very good job.
Transferwise was great, at first. I was an early adopter of Transferwise. Some years ago, my brother (and I, sort of) started filming documentaries and I handled a lot of the money and payments to some of the people involved in his documentaries overseas. At one point without warning, Transferwise left my brother stranded in Europe without a way to get money. Transferwise held onto a few thousand dollars for a few weeks without any contact or update or anything. Every time I would email or call, I would get some customer support who would ignore my replies or transfer me around with increasing wait times between transfers until they hung up, sort of typical phone hell. When we <i>finally</i> got a hold of someone at Transferwise, it turns out they decided that what we were doing was a cover for illicit activities (which is pretty bizarre, if you knew the people involved, and despite his published documentaries, footage, and even the receipts we kept for tax purposes).<p>Having family stranded overseas by this billion-dollar unicorn left a really bad taste in my mouth. The worst part was being left with absolutely zero recourse for the thousands of dollars that they were just holding on to <i>for weeks</i> without any contact with us. If you don't want to serve us because of some bizarre, hallucinatory conspiracy, fine, but don't hold onto the money for weeks in the interim without an explanation.
Throwaway for obvious reasons.<p>I applied for a position as a software dev there a few years ago through a friend. I hated every single moment of it.<p>It was like they exported the very worse from Silicon Valley's bullshit start-ups attitude. They just couldn't shut the fuck up about how they were really changing the world (yeah right), how awesome it was to work 60 hours a week for such a great Vision, how sick their (mandatory) team-holidays were, how everything and everyone was so siiiick here, mate.<p>I did all the rounds up to the one with the VP of Engineering who asked me to code FizzBuzz on a whiteboard (no kidding) and then spent the rest of the hour bragging about how last week he had turned down an "amazing engineer" (his words) because he wasn't "cool enough" to be one of them. You know, he was a bit of a loser, mate.<p>It really felt like a cult of ego-obsessed people with some narcissistic disorder; even worse, it felt like everyone was lying.<p>That said I'm sure there are a lot of nice people who work there, this is just my experience so take it with a grain of salt. The product is also good, I used it a few times myself.
Surprised to not see any mention here of legal and regulatory risk. One of the reasons moving money between countries is hard and expensive is that it is often done by people either trying to avoid tax liabilities, and/or by people involved in illegal activities and as a result governments are understandably keen to tie transfer agents up in rules regulations and liabilities. Ask HSBC...
I wonder how much of their valuation the Brexit vote cost them. It might eradicate a good chunk of their customer base. How would one go about modeling this, how are VCs modeling this?<p>Imagine a company built around some service for expatriates in Britain closed their series A and their series B was happening sometime around/after Brexit. I guess that would be down round territory?
I will say, their product is excellent and I've used it to transfer quite a bit of cash over the last few years. I tried a competitor of theirs (currencyfair) and the UI wasn't as nice a few years ago, which was about the only differentiator. Hope they can turn a profit soon.
I am just a very satisfied customer. They managed to be cheaper than using even a dedicated FX company for international transfers (I do Canada-Austria, Austria-Canada, Canada-Hungary) and the process is pretty seamless and it doesn't take longer than a SWIFT transfer usually.
<i>"The company says it is always improving the software that automates the matching process, including complicated solutions that cover, say, a pound-to-dollar transaction with multiple dollar-to-euro and euro-to-pound swaps. If TransferWise can’t find a match, it becomes a market maker, using its own money to complete the deal in the hope that another customer who wants to send at least as much money the opposite way comes along later. In doing so, it is essentially acting just like a traditional foreign exchange broker."</i><p>And this is how it spectacularly imploded 5 years from now.