The popularity of technology-driven international transactions are making their way to TransferWise's balance sheet.
For fiscal 2018, which ended on March 31, the London-based TransferWise reported about $152.4 million in revenue, up 75% from about $86 million in fiscal 2017. The company also reported profits of about $8.1 million, the company's second straight year in the black. In 2017 the company had profit of about $8.1 million after receiving a tax credit of approximately $9.1 million.
TransferWise has been targeting international transactions, including remittances, with a “borderless” account. TransferWise reports that product serves 4 million customers worldwide, both individual consumers and businesses.
Kristo Kaarmann, co-founder and chief executive officer of TransferWise, gestures as he speaks at the Web Summit in Dublin, Ireland on Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015. The summit, which started five years ago with 400 technology entrepreneurs, will draw more than 2,000 startups, 1,000 investors and 650 speakers to the three-day conference this year, organizers say. Photographer: Aidan Crawley/Bloomberg *** Local Caption *** Kristo Kaarmann
Aidan Crawley/Bloomberg
The company launched its “borderless” account starting with a pilot in January and then proceeded to a full consumer roll out in March. The “borderless” account provides consumers with multi-country banking, a service previously available only to businesses according to TransferWise. The bank account is coupled with a debit card provided by Wirecard.
“You’re now collectively saving [about $1.3 billion] every year by using TransferWise. Yet we’re just in the beginning, as banks around the world still rake in a handsome [$208 billion] from the cross-border fees hidden in the exchange rate,” said Kristo Kaarman, co-founder and CEO of TransferWise, in a blog post aimed at consumers.
It hasn't been all good news. Earlier this year, TransferWise had suffered an outage of service which left its customers unable to use its website, app and payment card for 11 hours. This was fresh off the heels of Visa Europe’s outage in June which affected 1.7 million cards and causing over 2 million Visa transactions to fail.
While banks will likely increase near-term dividend plans, analysts and investors are more focused on the long-term outlook for capital requirements from regulators.
The Financial Technology Association — which had been granted the right to defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's open banking rule after the bureau declined to defend it — filed a motion Sunday to preserve the rule.
Kevin Fromer, who has headed the Financial Services Forum since 2017, announced his departure Monday. Fromer transformed the Financial Services Forum to advance the interests of the largest U.S. banks.
