Wise develops and operates a global payment infrastructure. Wise reported 10mn active customers in 2023, up 34% YoY. 4.5mn customers joined in FY23. The total volume of transactions grew by 37% YoY to £105bn in 2023. The customer balances reached £10.7bn, up 57% YoY. The company reported £846mn revenue in FY23 and £239mn Adj EBITDA in FY23. Business segment revenues grew by 50% YoY in FY23, while personal segment revenue was up 51% YoY. The revenue grew in all geographies: +45% in Europe, 37% in the UK, 53% in North America, 60% in APAC, and 108% in RoW in 2023. The company has several medium-term targets: income growth >20% CAGR, supported by active customer momentum into a huge market opportunity; Adj EBITDA margin at or above 20%.
Wise PLC is a global financial technology company with a key focus on cross-border payments. The Company develops infrastructure with local payment systems, regulatory and compliance coverage, payments technology over application programming interface (API), and customer support and operations. Its payment infrastructure products include Wise Transfer, Wise Account, Wise Business, and Wise Platform. The Wise Transfer enables its customers to send money abroad. The Wise Account offers multi-currency banking services in over 50 currencies. The Wise Business provides a business account with features of the Wise account tailored to the needs of small and medium businesses, like bank feeds, mass payouts, and multi-user access. The Company’s Wise Platform is used by banks, credit unions, financial institutions, and enterprise partners.
The global international transfers market was £18trln in 2020, according to EDC and Wise. The fee paid by people and businesses for this service amounted to £190bn. Personal transfers amounted to £2trln paying £63bn revenue fee, £7trln was transferred by businesses and SMB, paying for the service £118bn fees, and £9trln was the volume transferred by enterprise paying £9bn fees. The Personal segment includes consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-business payments with broad use cases from personal remittances, eCommerce transactions, real estate investments, and other bills. SMB segments include B2C and B2B payments from wages and salaries payments, freelancing, and subcontracting payments to accounts payables for services imported from abroad. EDC estimates £24trln of international flows by 2026 (5% CAGR 2020-2026).
- Wise provides a cheap service compared to a traditional bank (0.7% average fee by Wise compared to 3-7% av. high street bank fee)
- Wise offers fast service (49% transfers instant and 83% in less than 24 hours compared to 2-5 business days for banks)
- Wise service is convenient and transparent
- Wise demonstrated strong consumer and revenue growth
- Wise reports positive operating and net income, maintaining good cost control compared to fintech peers
- High competition between fintech companies and traditional banks in the transfers segment
- Wise has limited offerings for customers
- Legal and regulatory regimes may change (Wise holds 63 licenses in 12 countries, enabling operations in 40 countries, including 30 EEA member states, and 49 US states, supporting over 2,500 foreign exchange routes as of July 2021)
- High inflation may negatively affect financial results and valuation
- Wise has exposure to FX currency fluctuations and interest rate changes
- Regulatory risks, including AML, CTF, personal data, anti-corruption regulations and capital requirements regulations
- Risks of cyber-attacks
- Cost inflation
- Exposure to risks in the codebase and financial losses as a result
- Exposure to risks of frauds and scams
| Company | RIC | Market Capitalization, $mn | Last reporting year | P/E Fwd 1Y | P/E Fwd 2Y | EV/EBITDA 1Y fwd | EV/EBITDA 2Y fwd | EV/Revenues 1y fwd | EV/Revenues 2y fwd |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wise PLC | WISEa.L | 8,686 | 2023-03-31 | 28.9 | 29.0 | 17.0 | 17.0 | 5.4 | 4.6 |
| Adyen NV | ADYEN.AS | 23,888 | 2022-12-31 | 35.9 | 29.2 | 22.9 | 17.9 | 9.9 | 8.0 |
| Worldline SA | WLN.PA | 8,483 | 2022-12-31 | 12.0 | 10.2 | 9.2 | 7.9 | 2.4 | 2.2 |
| Nexi SpA | NEXII.MI | 8,840 | 2022-12-31 | 11.5 | 9.6 | 8.0 | 7.0 | 4.1 | 3.8 |
| Network International Holdings PLC | NETW.L | 2,588 | 2022-12-31 | 26.0 | 20.3 | 13.4 | 11.1 | 5.6 | 4.8 |
| Sage Group PLC | SGE.L | 13,083 | 2022-09-30 | 32.2 | 28.8 | 22.0 | 19.8 | 5.2 | 4.8 |
| 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 232 | 376 | 580 | 735 | 972 | 1,309 | 1,680 |
| Growth | 62% | 54% | 27% | 32% | 35% | 28% | |
| EBITDA | 23 | 50 | 100 | 108 | 271 | 380 | 472 |
| EBITDA margin | 9.9% | 13.3% | 17.2% | 14.6% | 27.9% | 29.0% | 28.1% |
| Net income | 13 | 19 | 43 | 43 | 116 | 174 | 217 |
| Net margin | 5.8% | 5.0% | 7.3% | 5.9% | 11.9% | 13.3% | 12.9% |
| Net debt | -109 | -113 | -258 | -344 | -344 | -344 | -344 |
| MktCap | 10,181 | 6,976 | 6,976 | 6,976 | 6,976 |
Historical Multiples
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EV/Revenue | 17.1 | 9.0 | 6.8 | 5.1 | 3.9 |
| EV/EBITDA | 99.3 | 61.6 | 24.5 | 17.5 | 14.0 |
| P/E | 239.1 | 161.4 | 60.1 | 40.1 | 32.1 |
