Ask HN: WISE alternatives for international freelancers?

6 points by movingmove 2 years ago | 2 comments

I used WISE (Transferwise) for more than 5 years now. I live in Europe and had US clients in the past. Now a simple transaction from my WISE EU account to my local bank account is paused for more than 3 weeks, and in the last year or so, my whole account was put on pause to “proof my legitimate business”.

I am too afraid for my account being shutdown, and I can’t accept pausing transactions for this long. I started paying taxes through this account and pausing transactions result in fees.

So long story short: Which options do I have to receive international payments?

dserban 2 years ago |

https://getborderless.com/ would be one alternative I can think of that's in the same space as Wise.

But they too will behave in the same way at some point, due to compliance requirements. Banks and fintech companies need to know 1. who you are 2. that your income is from legit sources.

For #2, ask your customers (who paid you recently) to give you a copy of the banking app records of those payments, where the last 4 digits of the payer's bank account can be seen. Wise can then cross-reference those against what they see on their end, at which point they can declare your source of income verified. (I had to learn this the hard way myself.) Very importantly, those payment records have to be from the banking app that the accounts payable team is using, not Ripple or any internal payroll system.

gregjor 2 years ago |

A US bank account will give US customers the easiest way to pay. Real banks have to comply with regulations so they seem less prone to random holds and delays and hassles.

By extension a local account in countries you do business in will give customers the easiest way to pay.

I use Wise and PayPal sometimes for sending money, but I don’t trust those companies enough to hold lots of money in those accounts, or to receive important payments from customers. They seem to make up their own opaque rules as they go and users don’t have much recourse. My banks have to comply with US regulations.