UK fintech Wise has “temporarily paused onboarding new businesses” in Europe with prospective customers being guided to a waiting list, according to a notice recently posted to its website.
Speaking to FinTech Futures, a spokesperson from Wise attributes the onboarding freeze to “high demand”, but reveals that the company is starting to onboard UK businesses again from today, and that it is “now working to resume onboarding businesses in Europe as a priority”.
“Businesses already using Wise Business are not impacted by this,” the spokesperson says,adding that US businesses are also not affected.
“We’re continuously investing in our processes to speed up our onboarding operations, such as further automation when we require documents from our customers.”
The fintech initially launched its B2C proposition in 2011, enabling consumers to store money and transact internationally in over 50 different currencies. It later extended the offering to businesses in 2016 with additional services including payroll, card issuance and batch payments.
The move comes after the fintech temporarily deactivated Wise Business cards on 31 October for all businesses registered in the US.
When questioned why this happened, the Wise spokesperson tells FinTech Futures that it was the result of “an operational change”, and that the fintech has “proactively let a segment of our customer-base know that there are changes happening to their Wise Business debit card”.
“Those customers will receive instructions for ordering a new card,” the spokesperson adds.
Source: fintechfutures