{"id":389826,"date":"2025-09-01T18:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T18:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/389826\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T18:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T18:00:11","slug":"wise-considers-becoming-a-bank-in-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/389826\/","title":{"rendered":"Wise Considers Becoming a Bank in UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

Payments company Wise<\/a> is reportedly weighing becoming a full-fledged bank in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

The company has been in touch with experienced financial services executives in the last two months about roles in a future banking business, British newspaper The Times reported<\/a> Monday (Sept. 1). The plans are in the early stages, as Wise has not yet applied for a banking license.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Wise told PYMNTS the company does not comment on \u201crumors or speculation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wise, originally called TransferWise<\/a>, was launched in 2011 as a money transfer company. It rebranded<\/a> to Wise in February 2021 to reflect that its services had branched out into other areas, including bank-like services such as debit cards and multi-currency accounts.<\/p>\n

However, Wise is not a licensed deposit taker and operates under electronic money rules, meaning customer funds can\u2019t be used for lending and must be ring-fenced, the report said.<\/p>\n

John Cronin<\/a>, a banking analyst at SeaPoint Insights<\/a>, said it is \u201centirely plausible\u201d that Wise would try to become a fully-fledged bank, according to the report.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could potentially look to convert the funds they safeguard into deposits, which they could then recycle into lending opportunities,\u201d he said, per the report. \u201cA banking license would give them direct access to the U.K.\u2019s payment infrastructure, enabling them to reduce their reliance on third-party banks for clearing and settlement, potentially reducing costs and operational complexity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wise applied in June to become a national trust bank<\/a> in the United States. The move would allow it to bypass intermediary banks and settle dollar payments directly with the Federal Reserve<\/a>, potentially reducing costs and leading to faster transfers, the report said.<\/p>\n

Also in June, the company said it planned to move its primary listing<\/a> to a stock exchange in the U.S. while maintaining a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange<\/a> (LSE).<\/p>\n

The proposed dual listing would bring \u201csubstantial strategic and capital market benefits\u201d to the company and its owners, Wise co-founder and CEO Kristo K\u00e4\u00e4rmann<\/a> said at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese include helping us drive greater awareness of Wise in the U.S., the biggest market opportunity in the world for our products today, and enabling better access to the world\u2019s deepest and most liquid capital market,\u201d K\u00e4\u00e4rmann said. \u201cA dual listing would also enable us to continue serving our U.K.-based owners effectively, as part of our ongoing commitment to the U.K.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Payments company Wise is reportedly weighing becoming a full-fledged bank in the United Kingdom. The company has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[3427,331,748,393,3672,4884,12,1144,3279,712,16,15,1764,3281,15332],"class_list":{"0":"post-389826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-banking","10":"tag-banks","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-fintech","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-northern-ireland","17":"tag-pymnts-news","18":"tag-scotland","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-wales","22":"tag-whats-hot","23":"tag-wise"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115130349919711516","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}