Of late, an increasing number of people are establishing their businesses across international borders, which has led to several fintech startups to facilitate the movement of funds overseas. Although the P2P money transfer ecosystem is highly crowded, London-based fintech startup TransferWise has made quite a name for itself in this space.
In a recent development, the company has announced that it is planning to add 750 jobs over the next six months – more than a third of its current workforce.
As per the company, its 2020 financial year saw 70% growth in annual revenue to £302.6M (approx €332.5M) and claims it was the fourth year in a row that TransferWise has posted a profit.
TransferWise’s annual report
The company serves over 9 million individuals and businesses. In the financial year, “we processed a total volume of £67B (approx €73.6B), and sent £42B (approx €46.1B) across borders, saving you £1B (approx €1.09B) a year compared to making the same transfers with the bank,” said the company in its report.
The 10-year old company also doubled its profits from £10.1M (approx €11M) to £20.4M (approx €22.4M) in the 12 months, up to March 31st and also saw its customer base exceed 9 million earlier this year. The company plans to create 750 new positions globally, with 175 of the roles being based in London.
Amid the Coronavirus pandemic, most of the companies have asked their staff to work from home in order to be safe and maintain social distance. Likewise, TransferWise is also adopting a new hybrid model for its staff and has extended its remote working policy from 30 to 90 days.
“We’re already improving international banking for 9 million people and businesses, but this is just the very beginning. We need a lot of help beyond our current team of 2,200 people to achieve our mission of money without borders,” says Kristo Kaarmann, co-founder and CEO of TransferWise.
About TransferWise
The fintech company was launched in 2011 by Kristo Kaarmann and Taavet Hinrikus. Both co-founders wanted to stop the global practice of banks and brokers charging extortionate hidden fees, resulting in expensive, slow international payments.
TransferWise provides customers with a lower-cost alternative to traditional means of moving money internationally. It launched new products across the US, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East in 2019. The company supports 2500 currency routes and 54 currencies on the whole. In July 2020, when TransferWise launched its secondary share sale, it reached a $5B (€5.47B) valuation.
TransferWise’s product suite includes the borderless account and debit card, its money transfer service, and its Application Programming Interface (API) for larger enterprises and bank partnerships.
Growth and development
Just last week, TransferWise was granted a restricted banking licence by the Australian regulator, which means the startup is now a limited “authorised deposit-taking institution.” PayPal is another such fintech that had gained the same licence back in 2006.
Besides, earlier this month, Derwent London announced that TransferWise had agreed to extend and expand its occupation at the iconic Tea Building in Shoreditch E1 – once occupied by the Lipton Tea factory.
Currently, TransferWise occupies 31,700 sq ft on a lease that will expire in December 2023 with a tenant break in May 2021. After which, the company has committed to a new 5-year lease on 48,950 sq ft, an increase of 54% in order to increase its office space for its additional staff.
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