Wise Travel Money Business Card

Pauline Hatch

Pauline is a personal finance expert at CreditCard.com.au, with 9 years in money, budgeting and property reporting under her belt. Ask Pauline a Question about this card.

The Wise Money Transfer card comes in two forms: personal or business. The Wise Business card comes with all the same perks as the personal card but has been tailored to supercharge the way you send and receive funds overseas.

Best of all, the Wise Business card is incredibly low-cost to use. It has no setup fee and no monthly fees, and minimal fees to send and receive money, plus a lot of fascinating perks. Let’s look at how the Wise Business card works as a money transfer tool and a best friend for your business

Editor’s Review: What I love about the Wise Travel Money Business card

I spent a lot of time looking for the catch with Wise’s Business card. It seemed like it had an answer for everything. After reading a lot of information, I’ve come away impressed. Paying foreign transaction fees and currency conversion fees are huge business expenses, and the Wise Business multi-currency card looks like a remarkably smart and cheap solution.

I’ll show you how it works and its standout features.

Easy setup. There are no credit checks involved in starting up an account, although you might need to include some other documents to verify your business. Once your account is active, you can use the Wise app or log into your account to order a physical card for $6, and get immediate access to digital cards.

Low exchange rates. To use your Wise Business card, you add money to your account via the app. You preload the cash in AUD or convert it to over 40 currencies. When you’re travelling and use the card, it will automatically debit the local currency and you’ll pay no exchange fees or transaction fees.

When making overseas payments (for instance, doing payroll, paying overseas invoices, or buying inventory), Wise uses the mid-market exchange rate, which is the one accessed by independent sources such as Google, XE, Reuters and Yahoo! Finance. It means you’re not paying the fee between the mid-market rate and an exchange provider.

Wise’s transfer fees for overseas payments are some of the lowest. For example, if you were to send AUD$2000 to GBP, you’d pay an average fee of 0.41%, which is $9.38. I say ‘average fee’ because the fees get cheaper when you send large transfers or multiple transfers a month.

Easily invoice and receive payments. You can withdraw money from online selling accounts or trading platforms such as Stripe and Amazon using your IBAN or account details. You can also add specially-designated bank details in the local currency you want to invoice and be paid without any fees (using a payment link that makes it even easier for your recipient to pay).

Money tools. This card comes with a full suite of business software with great features, including:

• An easy interface that tracks your incoming and outgoing payments
• Open API that lets you sync with business tools like Xero and Quickbooks to automate payments and workflows
• A batch payments feature that can create and send up to 1000 separate payments in one transfer just by uploading a spreadsheet
• The ability to add other users and use permissions to control what they can access
• Tracking your team’s expenses in one place and setting limits on their spending

Low or no withdrawal fees. You won’t be charged an ATM withdrawal fee for making up to 2 withdrawals a month, totalling $350. If you make 3 or more transactions, you’ll pay $1.50 per withdrawal.

Transparent fees. Wise says it’s ‘radically transparent’ about its fees and is honest about what things cost. If you’re sending money, it shows the total including fees before you hit the pay button, and promises you won’t find any hidden fees lurking around.

Flexible for different businesses. In Australia, you can qualify for a Wise Business account if you’re a sole trader, freelancer, limited or public company, partnership, or a charity or trust. It’s a flexible business tool that can help businesses of all sizes.

What's not so great

The Wise Money Transfer Business card doesn’t have any monthly fees or set-up costs, but it’s not without some expenses. For instance:

Withdrawals: you’ll get 2 withdrawals up to $350AUD each month for free, but after that, fees are charged at $1.50 per withdrawal. If you withdraw over $350, you’ll also pay a 1.75% fee.

Physical card: $6

Sending and converting money: Minimum is 0.33% but it will vary depending on the currency and volume

Receiving USD wire payments: $6.11 USD flat fee per payment

Getting account details to be paid in local currency: $22 per currency

Wise does a good job of being available in more than 160 countries. You’ll need to check that you can use Wise in the countries you’re likely to deal with. Wise’s website says it currently can’t be used in:

Afghanistan, Belarus, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo and The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.

And, submitting invoices in the local currency is limited to AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, HUF, NZD, RON, SGD, TRY and USD.

Overall Rating

Wise says a 2022 independent study showed it was 19% cheaper to use Wise than Paypal. For businesses, where the bottom line is key, dodging unnecessary expenses like transaction fees can equate to hundreds or even thousands of dollars saved every year. The Wise Money Transfer card does the job incredibly well, offering a simple and streamlined way to send, receive and invoice payments internationally at a competitive rate.

Its money management software is a huge bonus, making it even easier to see all your transactions and currencies in one place. This is a business tool with no monthly fees or subscriptions, but very effective extras that can help your business save time and money.