Wise: Two Estonian Expats, a Santander Memo and the Move to Nasdaq

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Taavet Hinrikus, Skype's first employee, and Kristo Käärmann, a Deloitte management consultant, both moved from Estonia to London around 2006. Hinrikus was paid in euros but lived in pounds, while Käärmann earned pounds and owed a mortgage in euros. Banks were taking at least 5% on their transfers, mostly hidden in exchange rate markups and correspondent bank fees. The two began swapping money with each other at the mid-market rate, so no money crossed a border. In January 2011 they launched TransferWise in London, moving 10 million euros in the first year. The comparison site Monito found it averaged 83% cheaper than the UK's big four banks, and backers included Max Levchin, Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures, Richard Branson and Andreessen Horowitz.

The company turned profitable in 2017 while moving over one billion pounds a month, and a leaked Santander UK memo that April projected an 84% loss of transfer revenue if it matched TransferWise fees. In February 2021 it rebranded as Wise and built out the Wise Account, Wise Business and Wise Platform, which lets banks run transfers on its infrastructure. A July 2021 direct listing on the London Stock Exchange valued it at $11 billion. Scrutiny followed: an FCA list naming Käärmann for a deliberate tax default, a CFPB order of nearly $2.5 million in 2025, and a Belgian money laundering probe reported in June 2026. In mid-2026 Wise moved its primary listing to Nasdaq.

• In April 2013 TransferWise stopped letting users buy Bitcoin after pressure from its banking providers.
• Partnerships with BlackRock and Evolve Bank and Trust added interest on balances and FDIC insurance up to $250,000.
• In May 2016 the UK Advertising Standards Authority ruled its save up to 90% calculator misleading.
• Rival Atlantic Money complained in 2023 that Wise removed it from price comparison tables.
• The Belgian probe reportedly involved about 432 million pounds in suspicious transactions across 30 European countries.