The Unicorn; TransferWise; 独角兽企业; 164/174

The Unicorn; TransferWise; 独角兽企业; 164/174


164.TransferWise

 

 

Company Information

Valuation $1 billion
Sector Financial services
Headquarters London, U.K.
Founded 2010
CEO Taavet Hinrikus

 

 

 

TransferWise

TransferWise is an Estonian developed and UK-based peer-to-peer money transfer service launched in January 2011 by Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus with headquarters in London and offices in Tallinn and New York.[2] More than £3 billion has been transferred through TransferWise.[3] TransferWise supports more than 300 currency routes across the world.

History

The creation of TransferWise was inspired by the personal experiences of Taavet Hinrikus, Skype’s first employee, and financial consultant Kristo Käärmann. As Estonians working between their native country and the UK, they had personal experience of the “pain of international money transfer”[5] due to bank charges on the amounts they needed to convert from euros to pounds and vice versa. In the words of Hinrikus, “I was losing five per cent of the money each time I moved it. At the same time my co-founder Kristo Käärmann (also from Estonia) was starting to get paid in the UK and was losing a lot of money transferring cash back home to pay for a mortgage there”.

It inspired them to make a private arrangement, with Hinrikus – who was paid in euros – putting this currency directly into Käärmann’s Estonian account so he could pay his mortgage without having to convert pounds to euros, while Käärmann returned the favour by putting pounds into Hinrkus’ UK account.[8] This arrangement led them to start developing a crowdsourced currency exchange service to offer a cheaper alternative to established institutions.

In February 2012, their approval with the UK financial regulator was finalised.[10] In April 2013, they stopped letting users purchase Bitcoins, blaming pressure from other market players.[11] In its first year, transactions through TransferWise amounted to 10 million EUR.[12] In February 2015, more than 300 currency routes were supported

 

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