Rewire vs Wise

Rewire money transfer is an online banking service aimed at migrants living in Europe. You receive a debit card and a euro bank account and IBAN. Rewire services on offer are limited to:

International money transfers - Currency exchange and transfer to foreign bank accounts

Debit card - Receive a debit card attached to your EUR bank account

Online banking - Services available through their website 

Mobile app - Android and Apple apps available

Cash pick up - Cash pick up supported in some destination countries

Mobile wallet - Foreign currency transfer to mobile wallets

One of Rewire’s benefits is for a migrant to get their salary paid into a Rewire bank account. From there they can spend on their Rewire debit card and transfer money to their home country.

Wise provides a simple easy to use international money transfer service with digital wallet capabilities. Their digital wallet, or Borderless account also gives the individual local banking details in 6+ currencies including, EUR, SGD, NZD, USD, GBP and AUD. Their Wise Borderless debit card backs on to their Borderless digital wallet allowing you to spend directly out of your multi-currency account balances.

What Wise offers individuals

• International money transfers
• Borderless multi-currency receiving accounts
• Borderless Debit Card - FX optimised debit card
• Android and Apple apps
• Send money to email address
• Scheduled and recurring transfers - sufficiently funded Borderless account required for this to work.

What Wise does not offer individuals

• Personal account management
• Full support for regular transfers. Currently regular transfers or ‘scheduled transfers’ need to have a Borderless multi-currency account balance. Find out which countries support Wise Borderless account.
• Cash pick up or international bill payments

Rewire does not offer a service for businesses at this time. 

In addition to the services Wise offers the individual, there are some features only available for a business. Unfortunately, as Wise is online only, a business customer does not have support with currency fluctuations and trends. Wise does however offer easy to use transactional foreign currency receipts and payments.

Scheduled transfers is a recently added feature. This can reduce admin for those standard monthly, weekly payments to suppliers and staff. A sufficient balance in the Business Borderless account is required. Wise will remind the account owner to make sure there is sufficient funds in the multi-current account. What is not supported is standing orders from a business bank account through Wise. This may mean that businesses need to alter their business structure to ensure continuous sufficent Borderless account funding.

What Wise offers businesses

• Batch payments
• Xero and Quickbook integration
• FX optimised business debit card
• Multi-user account access
• Regular and scheduled transfers

What Wise for business doesn’t offer

• Business account management
• Risk management tools

Rewire money transfer fees

Registration fee - Zero

Debit card fee - Zero

Fees to transfer to Euro bank accounts - Zero

International money transfer fees - 1%

Exchange rates are non negotiable and sending large amounts does not influence the exchange rate offered. Perhaps another specialized money transfer service where fees are negotiable should be considered.

The Rewire money transfer rate of 1% is higher than some other international money transfer companies. But it is certainly lower than using the big banks.

Wise offers the real time exchange rate at the time of your transfer. Therefore fees are visible in addition to the transfer amount. The fee structure is complex as it differs depending on the currencies you are sending from and to. Fees also apply to the type of Borderless account transaction. Fees can also apply on the use of the Wise Borderless debit card. Fees are briefly summarised below. Read the detailed Wise review for more details on Wise fees.

Sign up - Fast and easy wizard driven process.

ID verification - ID verification can be done within the Rewire mobile app. Upload a photo of a passport, drivers license, or citizenship card.  Take a selfie within the app.  Verification can be within 1 - 2 business days.

Payment options -  Bank transfer to your free IBAN EUR account. Debit or credit card. 

Mobile apps - Available on Android and on Apple. Reviews of the Rewire mobile app do not rate well.

Minimum transfer amount - There is no minimum transfer amount. 

The Wise app design and user experience of their technology is great with simple, intuitive processes.

Registration - Fast and easy account creation

ID verification - Instant in some countries

Transfer speed - It can be instantaneous in some countries. Fast payments to Wise comes at an additional cost.

Minimum transfer amount - $1

Mobile app - Simple and easy to use. Probably the best designed app of the international money transfer companies.

Payment options - Wise has the broadest range of payment options. Local bank transfer, debit / credit card and country specific solutions such as POLi.

Rewire has a limited number of supported countries.

Rewire available registration countries

Residents of the following countries can create a Rewire account:

Israel, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Ireland, Austria, France, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, United Kingdom, Poland
 

Rewire supported destination currencies

EUR, PHP, NGN, NPR, LKR, INR, CNY, THB, GHS, KES
 

Currency Support

Rewire has a range of customer service contact options. WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger, email and phone. Email is only available on the weekends. Unfortunately, the iCompareFX review has found very poor reviews on Rewire’s customer support. This is discussed in a later section of this iCompareFX Rewire review.

Wise’s supported countries vary with different services having different supported customer countries and destination countries. These are detailed in the Wise Countries and Currencies article and is summarized below.

Send from - 23 countries plus the Europe SEPA countries

Send to - Over 60 currencies

Borderless account and debit card - Over 6 countries can sign up to their Borderless services.

Banking license - Rewire holds European financial licenses.

Fees transparency - Money transfer fees are a flat 1%.
 

Is Rewire Legit?

Yes. They are a legitimate business operating out of the Netherlands. They hold all the necessary financial licenses to operate in Europe.
 

Rewire challenges

TrustPilot - Rewire reviews on TrustPilot are very poor. The TrustPilot rating is 3 out of 5 and Average with complaints mostly about poor customer service. Rewire customer service on TrustPilot tends to mostly reply to the compliments. Only a small percentage of bad reviews are replied to.

Rewire Android app reviews - A number of rewire customers are complaining about poor service and customer support. Customer service seems to be more responsive to complaints within their app reviews. 

Wise is fully regulated by the FCA and their customer funds are segregated from their business banking activities.

Wise is rated on TrustPilot as Excellent. Unfortunately there have been some poor reviews on TrustPilot indicating sudden account closures with funds being returned with no explanation.

Wise continues to raise capital through private funding. This could be a concern for the future when the shareholders are looking for aggressive growth and / or a return on their investment.