Wise vs Swift

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

SWIFT is an international settlement system. It stands for Society for Worldwide International Financial Telecommunication. SWIFT doesn’t offer services to individuals. Banks leverage the SWIFT network for international wire transfers.  SWIFT is a more expensive and long process compared to peer to peer money transfer systems.
 

What SWIFT offers

• International money transfers.

What SWIFT doesn’t offer

• Cash pickup.
• Regular transfers.
• Account managers.
• Digital wallets.
• Personal travel cards.

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

Banks and other financial institutions also use the SWIFT network to carry out business-related wire transfers. While banks using the network might offer different features for their business customers, the SWIFT network in itself does not.
 

What SWIFT offers businesses

• International money transfers.

What SWIFT for business doesn’t offer

• Account managers.
• Risk management tools.
• Regular transfers.
• Accounting integration.
• Multi-currency accounts.
• FX optimised cards.

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.

The fees you need to pay when carrying out a SWIFT transfer depend on the bank you use, the recipient's bank, as well as intermediary banks involved in the process.

Carrying out a wire transfer through your bank is usually more expensive than using the services of a specialist money transfer company. This is not only because of the typically higher fees you need to pay, but also because of the exchange rate margin.

Banks apply margins/markups on existing mid-market exchange rates, which can be as high as 5%. Wise vs. Bank Transfers offers further insight into how banks compare against leading money transfer companies.

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.

How easily you are able to carry out a SWIFT transfer depends on the bank you're using. For instance, some banks might let you set up transfers online, over the phone and in person.

Transfer speed - Most SWIFT transfers go through in 2 - 5 working days. However, they can take longer if the process involves multiple intermediary banks.

Payment options - How you may pay for your transfer would depend on your bank. Paying directly through your bank account is usually the most cost-effective way.

Transfer limits - These too, would largely depend on your bank.

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.

Headquartered in Belgium, SWIFT was created in 1973. It provides a secure network that financial institutions from different countries use to transmit information about transactions in a standardized manner. The system allocates unique Bank Identifier Codes (BICs) that help identify individual branches of different banks.

The SWIFT network links financial institutions in over 200 countries and territories.

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.

The SWIFT network offers a secure and reliable way to transfer money between bank accounts held in different countries. Carrying out a SWIFT transfer or an international wire transfer is fairly safe, provided you use a licensed and reliable bank. However, in the event that SWIFT places sanctions on a country, or even specific banks, as was the case in Iran, then all existing transfers can get stuck in limbo.