Wise vs Western Union

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 TransferWise Borderless account.
• Cash pick up or international bill payments

Western Union lets you transfer money to most countries in the world, either to bank accounts or to cash pickup locations.

What Western Union does

• International money transfers
• Cash pick-ups
• Bill payments
• Transfers to inmates
• Prepaid card

What Western Union doesn't do

• Personal account managers
• Regular transfers
• Unique local multi-currency accounts
• Digital wallets
• Currency hedging tools

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

Western Union provides various forex services for business customers from a number of countries. 

What Western Union offers businesses

• Currency hedging tools
• Mass payments
• Incoming payments
• Multi-currency balances
• Accounting integration

What Western Union doesn’t offer businesses

• Solutions for online sellers
• Business travel cards
• Dedicated currency specialists

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 TransferWise review for more details on Wise fees.

Western Union money transfer fees

Exchange rate margin fee - This can be more than 5% for exotic currencies. 

Additional fees - The transfer fee you need to pay depends on the currencies involved, the transfer amount, the payment method and the delivery method.

• Cash pickups tend to attract more fees than transfers to bank accounts.
• With payment methods, credit cards attract the highest fees.

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.

Sign up - Registration is easy and follows an intuitive process.

Payment options -  Bank transfers, debit cards, credit cards and cash.

Mobile apps - Available for Android and iOS

Transfer limits - Based on where you and the recipient live, the transfer method and the payment method.

Multilingual website - Get website access in local languages, depending on which Western Union website you use.

Wise’s supported countries vary with different services having different supported customer countries and destination countries. These are detailed in the TransferWise 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.

Supported currencies - Western Union carries out transfers in around 130 currencies.

Supported countries - You can transfer funds to more to 200 countries and territories. You can register through the Western Union website from over 70 countries.

Phone support - Provides local phone support during business hours in several countries.

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.

Where Western Union does well

Regulated - Licensed by financial regulatory bodies of different countries.

Publicly listed - Regular audits to oversee safety and compliance procedures result in increased trust surrounding customers' funds.

Western Union challenges

Exchange rate and fee transparency - The Westren Union margin on existing exchange rates can be more than 5% for exotic currencies. Some Western Union reviews on Trustpilot and Play Store mention non-transparency in fees as well.

Customer support - A number of online customer reviews highlight concerns surrounding Western Union's unresponsive customer service.