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TransferWise changes name to Wise

wise.com

21–30 of 230 posts

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#21
post #7
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the limitations?

One in the US is that you cannot use a borderless account for ACH transactions initiated by the counterparty (despite it presenting the details that make it look like you can).

have you looked at Currency Cloud?

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#22
I find it interesting that companies often rebrand themselves to a generic word. Would Microsoft, for example gain anything by calling themselves "Micro" or "Soft"?

I also wonder if they tried to rebrand to "Transfer" as that would at least describe themselves and give them some interesting opportunities, e.g. money.transfer, coin.transfer

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#23

I love transferwise, depend on it often. I don't get the rebrand, their old name was descriptive, easy to google, and from all perspectives really good. The rebrand won't change me using it, but I really can't see the positive in this.

Definitely agree, akin to when BankSimple rebranded to Simple. It was awesome as is. Anyway, hope they stick around and eventually turn into a financial OS instead of folks needing a bank, plugging into underlying deposit accounts in the countries you need.

Funny, in my market “SimplePay” rebranded as “Simple” and I just had to double check my “Simple” iPhone app to make sure it wasn’t the former BankSimple.

It wasn’t. So I guess there must be multiple apps called “Simple?”

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#24
post #2

I'm very happy with TransferWise' low fees, but their 'borderless' account is unfortunately no substitute for a real account in the native currency in a lot of cases.

I'm not sure whether their fees are really that low. For transfers between your own accounts, for anything over very small amounts, I found that their 0.35% variable fee is pretty large compared to adding the funds to a brokerage account and then doing the conversion there (ie. IB charges 0.002% on currency trades, with a min of $2), and transferring back out into the desired currency.

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#25

I love transferwise, depend on it often. I don't get the rebrand, their old name was descriptive, easy to google, and from all perspectives really good. The rebrand won't change me using it, but I really can't see the positive in this.

They already had a lot of brand recognition that this really strikes me as odd as well. I'm guessing this is a better name for an IPO?

Edit: A quick googling confirms they've indeed started talking about an IPO recently.

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#26

I love transferwise, depend on it often. I don't get the rebrand, their old name was descriptive, easy to google, and from all perspectives really good. The rebrand won't change me using it, but I really can't see the positive in this.

It's when grounded design decisions become ungrounded. Sure, creating an umbrella company called Wise - where TransferWise is one segment they're targeting would be a good way to do it, and then launch other products under Wise, but they shouldn't rebrand TransferWise to Wise.

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#27

I love transferwise, depend on it often. I don't get the rebrand, their old name was descriptive, easy to google, and from all perspectives really good. The rebrand won't change me using it, but I really can't see the positive in this.

Drop (formerly Massdrop) rebranding is also a bad example.

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#28
post #27

I love transferwise, depend on it often. I don't get the rebrand, their old name was descriptive, easy to google, and from all perspectives really good. The rebrand won't change me using it, but I really can't see the positive in this.

Drop (formerly Massdrop) rebranding is also a bad example.

Not quite the same - but LikeALittle died a quick death when they rebranded to LAL.com - along with changing their amateur-looking Craigslist-simple type site into some overly clean and sharp looking, which didn't fit with the personality of LikeALittle at all; it was the design that killed it, the designers not actually understanding the implications/consequences of the changes they made - so it was luck that their first design went viral, perhaps leadership hired new designers, ignored the initial designer(s) - if they tried to put up a fight at all to the changes, no idea.

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#29
post #3

I've had good experience with TWise, sending money can be such a pain. WU was okay but after you exceed some amount start to get blocked/have to prove identity etc... I'm not rich/not sending massive amounts but was still getting flagged early on. TW is working pretty well so far, so is WU after I sent some docs. I tried a few other companies too but yeah settled on TW/WU.

WU = Western Union?
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