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The business landscape is evolving as more businesses take their operations online. Thus, services such as international receipts and payments offered by cross-border payment processing companies are also becoming more desirable.
Our comparison review looks into two such service providers – Wise (ex-TransferWise) and Revolut. The two companies based in the United Kingdom are now serving millions of customers worldwide with increasing popularity. This article will focus on their business accounts and compare the cost, availability, and compliance to global financial regulations.
The EU challenger bank Wise was launched in 2011 by Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus. For ten years, the company was known as TransferWise before its February 2021 rebrand to Wise. Wise is well known for its cheap cross-border payment services and mid-market exchange rates. It currently serves over 10 million customers.
Its rebrand to Wise signifies its push towards diversifying and expanding its services beyond local and international money transfers.
The Wise Business account is aimed at businesses and freelance customers, offering them a seamless global money transfer service and currency exchange features, including cryptocurrencies. It is one of the cheapest money transfer services.
Watch the video: Wise for Business introduction
Revolut was launched in July 2015 by co-founders Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko. The Fintech is based in London, UK, with its main services being global money transfers and currency exchanges through its multi-currency account.
However, there are several other services Revolut has added to its repertoire, including banking services for EUR and GBP accounts, cryptocurrency exchanges, stock trading, and peer-to-peer (P2P) payments. The company serves more than 15 million retail and 500,000 business customers.
The Revolut Business account offers extra features over its retail counterpart that are ideal for business and freelance customers. These include API integrations, online payment processing, and business debit cards.
Watch the video: Revolut for Business introduction
This section looks at the similarities and differences between the business-oriented products offered by the two companies. Wise does not reveal the exact number of corporate and freelance clients they have that use business accounts. Revolut, on the other hand, has at least 500,000 business customers.
The two companies are direct competitors, but here’s how different they are according to their product offerings and idea execution.
As a business, creating an account with either company is simple and straightforward. It would typically take a few minutes to have your account set up.
Before creating a Revolut Business account, you have to ascertain whether your business is eligible to have an account with the service. So far, the service is available in a limited number of countries. More information on this is provided in the ‘Country and Currency support’ section below.
Other than location, the other determining factor is the type of business entity. The entities supported are:
For verification purposes, here’s the list of documents you will need to provide:
For a corporate business account
For a freelancer’s business account
Getting a business account with Wise is more or less a similar process to Revolut, except that Wise accepts a broader array of business types. These are the business entities allowed to have an account on Wise:
If your business prequalifies to have an account with Wise, you will be required to provide the following documents for verification purposes:
Business account setup and verification for Wise and Revolut are similar and should take a similar amount of time. Typically, it will take between one and three days to be verified. But this could be longer depending on the availability of documents, the size of the company, and the complexity of your business operations.
Depending on your business’s nature, you may find that you need a specific feature or feature set more than another. The two accounts offer various features, some common and others specific to either.
So let’s look at a rundown of some of the more popular features offered by each service.
Other less popular features include payment requests, rewards, subscription tracking, and management, among others.
Wise is best known for its cheap and seamless money transfer services. This is true for the Business accounts as it is for the retail accounts. However, the Business account offers way more features than its retail counterpart. Here are some of the more popular:
In terms of features, Revolut offers more features geared towards solving its business customers’ needs. Wise is expected to expand its offering following the recent rebrand, but so far, it lags behind its rival.
Pricing is a sensitive matter and arguably the most important consideration for business customers. The two companies take different approaches when it comes to pricing their products. Here’s how they compare:
Over the past ten years, Wise has managed to build a reputation for cost-effectiveness regarding currency conversion and cross-border payments. Against most other competitors in the market, it certainly is cheap to use.
To enable low-cost currency conversions, Wise uses the mid-market rate, which is the real interbank rate that you will get if you had to ‘Google.’ However, it does add a small fee for the service.
Other costs associated with a Wise Business account are:
Revolut offers a tiered model for its account subscriptions as opposed to Wise, which has one type of business account. The various account tiers are:
The above are the charges associated with maintaining a Revolut business account. The various account tiers come with benefits such as a specified number of free local transfers depending on the account package and tier. For instance, Free corporate accounts get only five free local transfers while Scale accounts get 1,000 free local transfers.
There are other costs involved when using a Revolut business account, and these are:
Disclaimer: This is not a conclusive list of all the costs charged for services offered on either Wise or Revolut Business accounts; some of them can differ without a prior notice. Be sure to check fees precisely on official websites. You will notice that the costs are not clear cut and therefore hard to compare. For instance, even within the same service provider, such as Revolut, a similar payment may attract different charges depending on the package subscribed, the currency, and the day of the week. Generally, however, the two companies charge competitive rates for their services.
Neither Wise nor Revolut Business is accessible globally, and even within the countries and regions they operate in, not all types of businesses can have an account with either. This section highlights the countries and regions, the currencies, and the industries supported (or not supported) by the two platforms.
Wise Business is more accomodating of various business entities. It also offers broader support of businesses depending on their location. And finally, Wise Business allows for sending and receiving funds in more currency pairs.
Your funds’ safety and security are paramount, and this is an essential factor to consider when evaluating a bank or money transfer solution. Both Wise and Revolut have taken an active approach to comply with relevant laws and regulations, which means that they are both taking necessary measures to protect your funds.
When Revolut was launched in 2015, it was registered as a digital payments service. The FCA regulates it as an electronic money institution. This license allows it to operate as a money transfer service and issue cards.
In 2018, it acquired another license in the form of an EU banking license issued by the European Central Bank (ECB). This means that Revolut is regulated as a bank within the EEA. However, it has not fully utilized the available license to create a fully-fledged bank within the EEA.
It is still an electronic money transfer service in the UK and therefore cannot offer banking services. However, a Revolut Business account offers competitive features akin to a bank account.
Security-wise, Revolut uses machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to protect customer accounts. Additionally, it provides two-factor authentication, email and SMS notifications to log in and perform various account-sensitive operations.
Account signups are also subject to rigorous verification procedures to adhere to KYC provisions.
Like Revolut, Wise is also registered and regulated in the UK as an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This license allows it to offer services within the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA).
It is also registered and regulated by several other financial regulators in all the markets it has established a presence. For instance, in the US, it is regulated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) as a money transmitter service.
It is also regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), National Bank of Belgium (NBB), Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) in Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, Belgium, and Australia respectively.
These are just some of its main markets. It is also regulated in India, Japan, the UAE, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
In terms of security, Wise keeps all customer funds in a safeguarded account, meaning that these funds are separated from the company’s operating accounts. Additionally, the company uses AI and machine learning to control fraud and money laundering practices.
Account safety is also provided through two-factor authentication.
There you have it, a detailed comparison between Wise Business and Revolut Business accounts. Two highly competitive solutions with more similarities than they do differences.
It is tough to recommend one over the other based on their offerings. However, depending on your specific needs, you may find that one account offers more benefits than the other.
As we mentioned in the pricing section, it is difficult to compare which account is cheaper to use when transacting precisely. But generally, you may find that you save more with Wise as compared to Revolut, which also offers competitive pricing.
Costs alone may not be a huge differentiating factor between these accounts. They are both relatively cheap when facilitating money transfers locally or internationally. You will have to consider the other offerings, service availability, and currency support to choose what suits you best for your business needs.
It depends. Both offer compelling services but they each have their pros and cons. Wise has focused on being the most efficient and cheapest global money transmitter while Revolut offers a broader selection of services. To choose between the better option, you have to define your needs then compare which company offers the service and the cost.
Here’re some of the key pros of Revolut Business:
Easy and intuitive account opening process;
Competitive service costs including ATM fees, funds transfer, and currency exchanges;
Offers a mobile app to aid in account management, expense and debit card tracking;
Free ATM withdrawals £200/month and Revolut-to-Revolut money transfers;
Stylish business cards;
Open API to integrate with external platforms and automate functions;
Offers discounts through strategic partnerships with other B2B service providers such as Apple, Google, Adobe, InDeed, HotJar, and Slack.
Here’re some of the key pros of Wise:
Cheap and transparent pricing for money transfers and currency exchanges;
Free ATM withdrawals up to £200/month;
Highly regulated in several markets;
Receive funds in up to 8 different currencies, convert and hold up to 56 and send to over 80 countries;
Offers an open API to automate account functionalities such as currency conversions and payments.
And yes, and no. In the UK, it holds electronic money transmitting license from the FCA. In 2018, it acquired a banking license from the ECB, allowing it to operate as a bank within the EEA. Hence, it operates like a traditional bank in some EU jurisdictions via its Lithuanian banking license (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Malta, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia).
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