Wise has been granted an Australian Financial Services Licence for Investments (AFSL) from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
The Licence coincides with Wise surpassing 1 million active personal and business customers in Australia, who are now holding over A$1 billion in balances. The rise in customer numbers and balance figures has been driven by strong adoption of the Wise Account and Wise Business products. Wise has carved out a niche for Australians with financial needs beyond Australia’s borders.
With the new licence, Wise will be able to bring its popular investment product – called Assets – to Australia later this year, responding to customer feedback asking to grow the money they hold with Wise.
“We’re thrilled to have completed this first important step in bringing Assets to Australia. We’ve seen great uptake among our customers in other regions, and with more personal and business customers in Australia choosing to hold their money with Wise, we want to give them a way to make that money work for them,” said Tristan Dakin, ANZ Country Manager at Wise.
Wise will be one of the first in Australia to offer both personal and business customers the ability to earn a return on the $1 billion in balances held by investing in money market funds in multiple currencies, with no minimum balance requirements and no lock-up periods. With Assets, Wise’s customers will also be able to maintain instant access to their money allowing them to send and spend whenever they need to.
Globally, Wise customers in the UK, Europe, and Singapore have invested £2.9 billion GBP (A$5.6 billion) through Assets (as of FY24).
“While some Aussie banks do offer a decent return on money, it comes with a lot of fine print and hoops to jump through. With Assets, we want our customers to stay in control of how their money is held with complete transparency over how it’s being used. On top of this, we want customers to have total flexibility to keep using their money like normal,” added Dakin.
“We’ve made a number of significant strides this past financial year, and we’re excited to keep building on that momentum with the granting of this new licence and to bring Assets to Australia soon”.
Wise customers in Australia will be able to access Assets later this year.
