Wise revenues leap 25% in Q2 as fee cut attracts even more customers

Solid second-quarter trading helped lift Wise’s revenues to £132.8m during the last three months, up 25 per cent year on year.

The sharp increase was driven by international transfer volume growing a massive 36 per cent to £18bn, boosted in part by Wise’s recent cuts to the fees it charges on transfers.

“During the quarter, we made strong progress: we dropped prices faster than hoped, our payments got faster, with more features for businesses, and we launched our exciting new ‘Assets’ feature for customers in the UK,” said CEO and co-founder Kristo Kärmann.

“Customers are telling us that this is working—almost 4 million customers transferred £18bn this quarter, that’s a 36% increase on last year and a 10% increase from last quarter.”

While Wise’s lower fees caused its ‘take rate’ (the amount of money it books as revenue from transactions) to fall by six basis points to 0.74 per cent, its gross margin actually increased as it reduced the marginal cost of a transaction even further.

“So, we’re moving more of the world’s volume and operating at a lower cost, the benefit from which we’ve passed onto our customers, whilst maintaining a sound sustainable business model that’s investing even more for the long term.”

Even more of Wise’s transfers were delivered instantly this last quarter, with now 40 per cent of all transfers happening instantly, up from 38 per cent in Q1.

The results followed a similarly strong first quarter when its results jumped 43 per cent to £123.5m due to strong business customer growth.

Kärmann and the Wise team cautioned that they expect the company’s take rate to be slightly lower in the second half of the year, as the full impact of its fee cuts are felt, with revenue growth in the low to mid-20 per cent for the full year.

Wise is due to report its full H1 interim results on 30 November.