Wise plc
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Core profile pages, annual revenue records, and related research hubs for this company.
Leadership History
2 leaders · 2011 to present
Wise is a public fintech headquartered in London and primarily listed on Nasdaq under WSE with an LSE secondary listing under WISE. It reported FY2026 net revenue of $2.5B.
Wise earns money from transparent cross-border transfer fees, currency conversion, debit-card interchange, account and business fees, asset products, and Wise Platform integrations for banks and enterprises. The core customer promise is simple: show the mid-market exchange rate, charge an explicit fee, and route payments through lower-cost local rails instead of relying only on correspondent banking. The Wise Account is the strategic hub. Once a customer holds balances in multiple currencies, Wise can monetize card spending, business accounts, international payroll, supplier payments, platform payments, and selected interest or asset products. That makes Wise more durable than a single-remittance corridor business, but also exposes the company to rate cycles and regulation around how customer balances are treated.
Co-founder and CEO
2017 – Present
9 years (current)
Leads Wise through account expansion, public listing, regulatory scaling, and the Nasdaq primary listing.
Co-founder and early CEO
2011 – 2017
6 years
Helped build TransferWise from a cross-border transfer idea into a fast-growing fintech brand.
Wise faces regulatory scrutiny, rate sensitivity on balance-related income, pricing pressure from Revolut, Remitly, banks, card networks, and payment processors, and the operating complexity of more than 70 regulatory licenses. The Nasdaq primary listing adds a broader U.S. investor base but also increases public-market scrutiny.
The company has to keep lowering prices without letting compliance, fraud prevention, customer support, and payment-rail expansion dilute margins. That balance is the central challenge in its plan to scale from hundreds of billions of volume toward a much larger share of global cross-border flows.
Kristo Kaarmann is listed as Wise's current lead executive in this profile.
Kristo Kaarmann is focused on lower cross-border fees, instant payments, Wise Account adoption, Wise Platform growth, and regulatory execution.
Leadership changes help explain shifts in capital allocation, product priorities, and competitive positioning.
Leadership has kept Wise focused on transparent pricing, product breadth, and infrastructure ownership instead of a branch-based banking model.