- Key insights: Wise has expanded its Austin office 200% to 90,000 square feet.
- What's at stake: The money transmission fintech is planning a dual listing on the London and New York Stock Exchange next year.
- Forward look: The company separately inked a new partnership with Upwork to add Wise Platform as an infrastructure provider.
As it preps for its New York stock listing, payments fintech Wise is expanding its North American hub in Austin, Texas and increasing the reach of its payment infrastructure product, Wise Platforms, with a new partnership with freelancer platform Upwork.
Wise earlier this month tripled its office space in Austin, its North American hub, to 90,000 square feet. The company has more than 700 employees, which it calls "Wisers," working in its U.S. offices, with a majority working out of the Austin office, said Emily Foulkes, Wise's people lead for North America.
"We're continuing to hire, absolutely," across the board in servicing, engineering, tech and people, Foulkes told American Banker. "There's a lot of opportunity to build out our teams even further."
Wise is embracing the concept of a "full-stack office," or where different disciplines or role functions share the same space.
"We believe the best creativity and collaboration and problem solving come when our engineers sit next to product [developers], sit next to our customer service and our operational teams who are physically answering the phones and dealing with customer queries and issues. We like those feedback loops," Foulkes said.
Wise first opened its Austin office in
But tech growth was cooling in Texas in 2024, according to venture capital firm SignalFire.
"Once the darlings of tech growth, Austin and Houston have been losing startup talent," according to SignalFire. "Lagging infrastructure, a cultural mismatch, fluctuating housing costs, and a renewed emphasis on hybrid RTO policies are motivating startup employees to live closer to traditional hubs."
Austin posted a 6% decline in headcount at VC-backed startups in 2024, according to SignalFire.
"This investment in Austin is really intentional," Foulkes said. "It reflects what we see as the opportunity to bring our products to people and businesses across North America."
Wise separately is expanding the reach of its Wise Platforms business with a new partnership with freelance hiring platform Upwork. Under the deal, Wise Platforms will become an infrastructure partner for Upwork's international payouts.
Wise Platform is the company's global payment infrastructure designed for banks, financial institutions and enterprises, providing technology and network needed to enable payments within their own network. Standard Chartered, Morgan Stanley, Brex, Google Pay and Ramp all use Wise Platforms, according to Wise.
"Wise Platform and Upwork are essentially partnering to enhance Upwork's existing international payment infrastructure for their global freelancers," Lauren Langbridge,
commercial director for Americas at Wise Platform, told American Banker. "We have been brought in to help strengthen that existing payments capability and to broaden the options for the freelancers they have today by integrating our network into the network that Upwork already had."
The partnership isn't so much about adding new corridors to Upwork's infrastructure as it is making the payments faster, Langbridge said, noting the company has a 99.5% straight through processing rate, with 70% of its payments settling in 20 seconds or less. "And it's those kinds of payment speeds that our partners look to use us for."
Wise Platform is a key business line for the fintech, according to Jeffries analysts' deep dive into the product in January.
"Given Wise's recent growing success in Wise Platforms, we believe Wise stands at an inflection point of its technology outsourcing offering," Jefferies said.
The moves come as Wise is preparing for a
