Which scores better when comparing WorldFirst vs Wise? See how each provider scores and who wins when comparing their services, fees, supported countries and customer service.
WorldFirst
Overall score:
84
84
Wise
Overall score:
75
75
Personal Features
Business Benefits
Fees & Exchange Rates
Ease of Use
Support & Countries
Trust & Transparency
50
50
WorldFirst offers international money transfer services for individuals. They also offer tools for business clients.
50
50
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.
Both equally compare in the Personal Features category.
89
89
WorldFirst has an excellent offering for business and promotes partnerships with businesses operating in a global environment. There are solutions for online sellers, import / export and global human resources payments.
Through the WorldFirst World Account you can leverage unique banking details in 10 different currencies and reduce costs on receiving money from customers and paying suppliers. Local banking details are available in GBP, EUR, USD, CAD, CNH, HKD, JPY, NZD, SGD and AUD.
56
56
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.
79
79
WorldFirst has a super simple fee structure for international money transfers. The WorldFirst fees are additional to the real exchange rate.
WorldFirst World Account fees also have the same simple fee structure and fees only apply when withdrawing funds from virtual multi-currency accounts.
| Annual Transfer Amount | £0 - £500K | £500K - £5M | £5M+ |
| WorldFirst Fees | 0.60% | 0.35% | 0.25% |
WorldFirst Australia has introduced (March 2021) new fees for small currency conversion amounts of less that AUD$10,000. These fees can make it prohibitive for small businesses to conduct day to day business payments.
| WorldFirst Australia fixed fee for FX | Fee |
| < $2,000 | $20 |
| $2,000 - $10,000 | $10 |
| $10,000 + | $0 |
54
54
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.
| Wise Service | Wise fee |
| Simple International Money Transfer | 0.4% - 2% Varies on currency and payment type |
| Adding to Wise Borderless account | 0.4% - 0.5% |
| Converting between Borderless account | 0.3% - 0.6% |
| Sending money out of Borderless account | Less than 0.1% in most cases |
| Borderless Account Debit Card | No fee for card issuance Fee free cash withdrawal limit of US$250, 2% thereafter Zero cost on spend from existing currency balance, 0.24 - 3.69% fee if there is no existing balance |
57
57
WorldFirst account creation and registration is simple and straightforward. Unfortunately there is room for improvement in some areas:
ID verification - This can be slower outside of the UK taking up to 24 hours.
Payment options - Basic by only supporting bank transfer payment options.
Mobile apps - The World Account uses a different mobile app than their international money transfer app. This can be cumbersome for account management.
Minimum transfer amount - This is quite high for individuals at $2000 / £1000. There is, however, no minimum for business clients.
83
83
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.
56
56
Unfortunately, USA residents are not eligible to create a WorldFirst account. This is a major let down for WorldFirst supported countries. This point has impacted the WorldFirst supported countries iCompareFX score.
88
88
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.
94
94
63
63
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.
WinnerThe results are neck and neck with WorldFirst only winning by a small margin. Both tie in the Personal Features section but WorldFirst significantly beats Wise in Business Benefits and with its lower and more transparent fees and exchange rates. That said Wise edges out WorldFirst in the Ease of Use and Support and Countries categories.
