Mastercard, TransferWise Expand Partnership Worldwide

The TransferWise Debit Mastercard will be available in nearly every country worldwide.

Need to Know

  • The new partnership will offer a borderless debit Mastercard to anyone in a country where both Mastercard and TransferWise operate.
  • TransferWise and Mastercard have been partnered since 2018
  • More than a million TransferWise Debit Mastercards have been issued to date.

Analysis

TransferWise, the international money transfer service, is expanding its partnership with Mastercard in an effort to make its services available to prospective users worldwide.

The two companies, which partnered in 2018, currently offer the TransferWise Debit Mastercard, which a borderless account that allows users to spend anywhere in the world at a low exchange rate. The card is currently available only in the EEA, U.S., Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand; the expanded partnership will make it available in any world market where the two companies do business—which is nearly every country worldwide. To date, more than one million TransferWise Debit Mastercards have been issued.

“We are proud to be expanding our relationship with TransferWise, having enjoyed a solid partnership over the past three years,” said Andrea Scerch, president of processing services for Mastercard, of the expanded partnership. “Broadening TransferWise’s global reach will enable millions more people around the world to benefit from Mastercard’s worldwide acceptance footprint and TransferWise’s innovative multi-currency payment solutions.”

TransferWise, which was founded in 2011, is a London-based online money-transfer company. It supports multi-currency accounts and is currently available in more than 750 currencies. In 2019, the company was valued at $3.5 billion and had more than five million active users.

“We’re making it faster, cheaper and easier to move money around the world,” said Kristo Käärmann, CEO and co-founder of TransferWise. “To date over one million debit cards have been issued to people wanting to make the most of everything our borderless account has to offer. As we think about the next phase in our international expansion, we want to ensure this process stays just as convenient whether you need a debit card in the UK or Japan. Building upon our partnership with Mastercard is important in maintaining that high level of convenience around the world.”

For its part, Mastercard recognizes the importance of flexible remittance options. In mid-2019, the company partnered with the National Bank to offer international wire transfers via Interac, the Canadian payments system. This partnership was groundbreaking, in that it paved the way for more companies to at least consider remittance partnerships between global payments networks (such as Mastercard) and domestic operators (like Interac).