Financial services company
Wise, originally TransferWise, is a London-headquartered cross-border payments company founded in 2011 by Estonian entrepreneurs Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus. The company runs a global multi-currency account, debit card, and payments infrastructure that moves more than £100 billion per year for personal and business customers.
Wise holds regulatory permissions in the UK, the European Union, the United States, Singapore, Australia, Japan, and multiple other jurisdictions, and in several markets has pioneered direct access to domestic payment rails, reducing reliance on correspondent banking.
In July 2021, Wise completed a direct listing on the London Stock Exchange, the largest ever UK tech direct listing, using a dual-class share structure that concentrated enhanced voting rights with early employees and long-standing shareholders. The plc, Wise plc, sits above the regulated operating subsidiary Wise Payments Limited.
The group has remained profitable for many years and publishes quarterly trading updates and interim and annual reports under the UK Listing Rules.
Wise is one of the clearest case studies of how UK company law accommodates a modern tech IPO. The holding company, Wise plc, was incorporated in England and Wales (company number 11497015) and re-registered from private to public in advance of the 2021 direct listing.
Rather than pursuing a conventional underwritten IPO, Wise became the first UK company to use a true direct listing, allowing existing shareholders to sell into the market without a fresh share issue or stabilising book-build.
Uniquely, Wise paired that direct listing with a dual-class share structure, an arrangement more familiar from Nasdaq-listed US tech companies. Class A shares (ordinary) and Class B shares (carrying enhanced voting rights, time-limited) enabled founders and long-term holders to retain strategic control while still admitting ordinary shares to the LSE Main Market.
Under the listing regime in force at the time, this arrangement was only possible via the Standard Listing segment; the 2024 FCA listing regime reforms, explicitly influenced by Wise's precedent, now allow dual-class structures on the single commercial companies segment.
Below Wise plc, Wise Payments Limited is the FCA-authorised electronic money institution that operates the UK product. Subsidiaries in Estonia (a heritage from TransferWise's founding), Belgium, the US, and Asia-Pacific hold local payment licences. The group files annual accounts and persons-with-significant-control statements at Companies House, alongside FCA Gabriel/RegData returns for the regulated entity.
Wise plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange Main Market under the ticker WISE, following its July 2021 direct listing, the largest direct listing ever by a UK technology company.
Wise plc is registered in England and Wales with Companies House number 11497015; the operating subsidiary Wise Payments Limited has its own separate Companies House registration.
The Class A / Class B dual-class structure was introduced at listing to preserve strategic continuity for founders and long-term shareholders while still floating ordinary shares on the LSE; class B voting rights sunset over time.
No. Wise operates as an FCA-authorised electronic money institution in the UK and holds equivalent payment or e-money authorisations in other jurisdictions; it does not hold a UK banking licence.
