Is Wirex Safe?

Company size:  

Launched in 2014, the premise of Wirex made perfect sense. As Wirex’s CEO and co-founder Pavel Matfeev puts it, “We don’t think that customers need to choose between the novel crypto world and familiar traditional money; we believe these two ecosystems can and should coexist. At the end of the day, we want to give customers a choice, so people can decide what’s better for their particular problem. Only when people see real benefits, such as cheaper and quicker money transfers or transparent fund tracking, will we reach mass market and mass adoption.”

Given the success of digital challenger banks such as Revolut, Monzo and Starling Bank, we can understand why a fintech would want to build on this approach with the addition of crypto. Moving money between crypto and traditional ‘fiat’ currencies has been a pain point for customers for many years, with many of the leading crypto exchanges still unable to process fiat withdrawals. In 2015, the firm developed the world’s first crypto-enabled payment card that gives users the ability to seamlessly spend crypto and traditional currencies in real life.

Nowadays, with a team of over 200 staff and nearly 3.5 million customers across 130 countries, the company offers multicurrency accounts that allow customers to easily store, buy and exchange multiple currencies instantly with live rates on one centralised mobile app. Quick and simple crypto transfer options are available, as well as the freedom to spend 150+ traditional and cryptocurrencies in more than 61 million locations around the world using the Wirex card/mastercard payment network.

After many years of successful growth and happy customers, Wirex appears to be encountering some major issues in 2021. One recent article, points to some very serious issues, which we won’t re-list here as Wirex points to them being defamatory but we encourage you to conduct your own research. One thing that can’t be contested is the huge swathes of disgruntled customers who are seeing access to their accounts frozen, an inability to withdraw money and a lack of response on these issues from the Wirex customer service team – some queries outstanding for over a year! As it stands there are a lot of people unable to get their money back and the FCA have asked Wirex to temporarily halt all new client registrations in the UK. 

Looking at Wirex’s expansion into the US, if we take a look at a recent blog from Wirex, it shows the firm was taking the correct approach to ensure it was regulatory compliant and working with the correct authorities. Authorised by the FCA under the electronic money regulations 2017 and registered in the EEA as an e-money institution with the Bank of Lithuania, the firm appears to hold the relevant licensing to conduct its activities. Still though, even with the correct licensing in place, it doesn’t exclude the firm from potential money-mismanagement. Given the number of complaints the firm has had in March 2021, we definitely think it’s best to hold off on registering and see how this all pans out for now.

Regulated By: 

Cryotoassets are provided by Wirex Ireland Limited and regulated for the EEA.

Traditional currencies are provided in the EEA by UAB Wirex, authorised by Bank of Lithuania as an e-money institution. Traditional currencies are provide

Awards:

None

 Conclusion:

The core principles of Wirex, which aim to reduce the barriers of moving money between crypto and fiat currencies, and improve the capabilities of spending crypto funds, are admirable. There’s certainly a gap in the market for such a service and no doubt the near 3.5 million sign ups attests to this. 

For many years, the firm enjoyed rapid growth, driven by a slick digital product that on the most part, seemed to operate just fine. Though issues with poor customer service appear to be deep rooted and go back to even when customers reviews of the Wirex app were largely positive. 

The firm partners with some mammoth financial institutions including Mastercard, Visa and Ralisbank – which would usually attest to the reliability and credibility of the firm. Recent press releases and customer complaints, however, have serious cause for concern and we would not recommend registering for the service right now. As it stands UK citizens are unable to register for Wirex anyway. On some customer complaints it would appear that account freezes have been in relation to the UK leaving the EU and Wirex not acquiring the relevant licenses to continue its UK operations. If this is true, it is dreadful preparation – it had been evident for a long time that the UK would lose its EU financial passporting rights after the end of the transition period. The best rated international money transfer companies were well across these regulatory changes and customers experienced no disruption as a result.

Wirex Customer Reviews

Research:

• 7,469 reviews on TrustPilot (3.4/5)
• 1,991 reviews on App store (4.2/5)
• 19,802 via Google Play (3.7/5)

True as of March, 2021

Conclusion:

Out of 7,469 reviews on TrustPilot, 59% of reviews rate the firm five stars – excellent. 10% of reviews rate the service as great, 3% rate the service average, 3% rate the service poor and 25% rate the service as one star – bad. The most worrying thing is the severity of the customer complaints and shift in how frequent the bad reviews are. For a long time the service appeared to be working pretty much OK but the majority of the bad reviews have been left this year. The bad reviews also appear to be mainly from UK citizens who are experiencing account freezes with no way of removing money from their accounts. So there’s a chance this could be a result of the firm failing to plan for Brexit. We will have to wait until the FCA’s findings are released to know for sure.

It should be noted we don’t like the way the firm responds to negative Wirex reviews on TrustPilot at all – the responses are generic and completely seem to fail to comprehend the magnitude of the complaints.

Wirex Exchange Rate & Fees

Getting a Wirex card and corresponding current account is free. The firm runs three monthly payment plans as follows:

Standard plan – FREE. Gives everybody the chance to benefit from game-changing features like the new multicurrency Wirex card, 0.5% Cryptoback™ in-store, unlimited free fiat-to-fiat exchanges and fee-free transfers. 

Premium plan – SGD 9.99 per month. The same revolutionary features as Standard, plus a whopping 1% Cryptoback™ in-store and online, 2% annually on the balance of your WXT account and free express delivery for your new multicurrency Wirex card. 

Elite plan – SGD 29.99 per month. The ultimate Wirex experience, combining cutting-edge features with turbocharged rewards that are not available anywhere else. A gargantuan 2% Cryptoback™ in-store and online, 6% Savings Bonus on your WXT balance, free express delivery for the new multicurrency Wirex card and exclusive merchant offers*.

Depending on the currency of your account, the following fees and limits apply:

Account fee: FREE

Multi-sig crypto accounts: FREE

Multi-sig fiat accounts: FREE

Card maintenance fee: FREE

Card issuance: FREE

Card replacement: Free

Card delivery (Standard): Free

Card delivery (DHL Express courier): SGD 5-25

Limits:

Fiat exchange: UNLIMITED

Crypto exchange: Limit varies depending on the currency from which the conversion is performed.

Crypto transfer OUT per transaction: USD 10k

Per day: USD 50k

Credit / Debit card top-up (confirmed): USD 5000

Credit / Debit card top-up (unconfirmed): USD 50

Card spend limit per transaction: SGD 5000

Maximum account balance: UNLIMITED

ATM withdrawals: SGD 250 per day

Bottom line:

Minimum transfer is $1 and no explicit maximum upper limit, customers have flexibility when using Paymentearth. The exchange rate spread is reported to be as good as  0.5%, which is very reasonable and comparable to TransferWise’s dollar margins. Payment fees are also never going to be more than $8 (free when LOCAL) and is much cheaper than you would be receiving from a US bank. 

Overall, this is competitive pricing, though it is usually preferable for customers to have just a fixed conversion fee instead of two different ways of losing money. What is impressive is that they calculate the exchange spread (they call it a conversion fee) next to the interbank rate, which is going above and beyond in both transparency and functionality.

Wirex Global Reach & Service

Research:

• Dedicated Dealer: None
• Offices: London, Singapore, Kyiv, Tokyo, Toronto, Dallas, Dublin and Atlanta.
• Ways to approach: In App Chat
• Translations: English only
• Accepts clients: 130 currencies for crypto. UK, EEA & Singapore for multicurrency traditional accounts.

• Currencies Handled: 18 (9 traditional, 9 crypto)
• Client reviews: 3.4/5 TrustPilot

Conclusion:

Wirex’s crypto offering is available in an impressive 130 countries. As we know, cryptocurrencies are currently less regulated than traditional fiat currencies, so this may explain why Wirex was able to enjoy such rapid growth to so many countries.

In the UK & EEA individuals can access the Wirex Multicurrency Mastercard, allowing users to spend their balances at over 60 million merchants around the world. In Singapore it’s called the Wirex Multicurrency Travelcard (supplied by Visa) allowing users to spend wherever Visa is accepted.

Wirex is currently going through the correct due diligence protocols to launch its multicurrency account and multicurrency travel card in the USA & Japan.

Additional Functionalities

No additional features specifically relate to international payments. International bank transfers aren’t possible, just conversion between 9 traditional currencies in your Wirex account and a currency card which is linked to your Wirex account. Allowing you to spend your Wirex balances around the world. Users cannot even conduct spot transfers to normal bank accounts and certainly not Forward Contracts. 

Being a digital banking solution for both traditional and crypto currencies, Wirex offers: 

1. Multicurrency digital bank accounts
2. Buy and sell crypto
3. No fees for fiat to fiat FX conversion (between Wirex digital accounts)
4. Multicurrency card

Conclusion:

The idea behind Wirex is for it to act as an alternative bank account for both traditional and crypto currencies, in this sense it allows travelers who are on the move to withdraw money from ATMs and make point-of-sale card payments. In terms of international payments though, the service is still limited. 

There is no ability to make international payments to other bank accounts (you can send money between Wirex users) but the idea is it’s very much designed to help you manage your own finances as opposed to sending money to others.

As it stands, the number of currencies offered is considerably less than some of the other money transfer companies we review here but they do have the added functionality of nine cryptocurrencies. For customers looking to make international transfers or have any requirement to hedge their international exposure then Wirex is not for you.