Wise to double down on cross-border payments, roll out prepaid forex card

Over 75,000 users waitlisted; fintech eyes cross-border payment expansion after securing RBI's in-principle PA-CB nod

UK-based fintech Wise is rolling out a multi-currency prepaid forex card for users in India as the company is doubling down on expanding its presence in the cross-border payments space in the country.

 

More than 75,000 users have waitlisted themselves to get the card ahead of its complete rollout, Taneia Bhardwaj, South Asia expansion lead at Wise, told Business Standard.

 

Unlike other cards where forex markups may range between 2 per cent and 4 per cent, Wise claims to offer an average fee of 0.5 per cent of a transaction value, while converting between currencies at a mid-market rate.

 

“When one spends using cards, what happens is that the (card) network completes the conversion. But, because of our licensing network and global reach, we are the ones doing the conversion, which is at a mid-market rate,” she added.

 

The card will support more than 40 currencies, including travel destinations such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey and Georgia, among others.

 

It is accepted at merchants across more than 160 countries on Visa’s network.

 

While the forex card cannot be used for domestic transactions — payments within India — users may opt to use the card to make purchases at online merchants overseas.

 

Bhardwaj added that the card supports a smart conversion feature that allows users to automatically check for the best available rate.

 

“What a smart conversion feature actually does is that between the currencies that a user has already loaded in this card, it picks the pair that is the cheapest and the best rate for a customer to convert,” she explained.

 

What is Wise’s cross-border payments plan in India?

 

In June, the company received the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) in-principle approval to become a payment aggregator for cross-border payments for exports. It is now awaiting the full licence from the banking regulator.

 

This came at a time when the company claimed that it supports around 10 per cent of all inward remittances to India.

 

Globally, the company is present in 70 markets.

 

“It (cross-border payments) is one of the focus areas. We will double down to ensure that we onboard new entity types, and add more enhancements to the product that already exists,” she said.

 

At present, there are 11 entities with the full licence from the RBI to operate as payment aggregators for cross-border payments (PA-CBs).

 

Players in the space include Cashfree Payments, Razorpay, Skydo, BriskPe and PayGlocal, among others.

 

“The differentiator for us is that we are licensed in over 70 countries around the world. We have got that infrastructure covered and those pipes exist. We’re giving the ability to be able to collect payments from almost 70 different jurisdictions, which is an advantage,” she said.

 

Wise is connected to eight different payment rails globally.

 

On a global payments player like Wise’s direct connection to India’s real-time payments system Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Bhardwaj said: “The ability to be directly connected to UPI would be amazing. However, non-banks cannot do it due to regulation. We are actively seeking guidance from the regulator and ecosystem players and it’s something that we feel strongly about.”