I dont know if this is relevant Ms Chocolate, but I tried to make a transfer about a week ago and out of the blue Wise demanded to see proof of my identity i.e; upload a current photo and my passport ID page. I have been using them for about 5years and did the same thing when I opened the account.

The delay to my payment was minuscule ...less than 15 minutes, but perhaps you have missed this request ????

I have made one further transfer since without a problem.

 

Wise has finally moved to requiring photo ID and passport or national ID card verification before they will allow you to make transfers. It's a one off requirement and once you complete it transfers are pretty much instantaneous. At least that is my recent experience.

 

I’ve been using Wise for several months through my credit union to send funds to the checking account in France...

Just to clarify on the method you're using: you have two Wise accounts, one in $US and one in €(Euro), so you transfer from credit union to the Wise account in $, then do the currency conversion "inside" Wise, between the $ and the € accounts, then initiate the transfer from Wise € to French (€) outside Wise account, right? At which one of these three stages is the process failing?

 

I dont know if this is relevant Ms Chocolate, but I tried to make a transfer about a week ago and out of the blue Wise demanded to see proof of my identity i.e; upload a current photo and my passport ID page.

Wise has finally moved to requiring photo ID and passport or national ID card verification before they will allow you to make transfers. It's a one off requirement and once you complete it transfers are pretty much instantaneous. At least that is my recent experience.

I suspect this is the problem. My credit union app acts as a kind of front-end to Wise, so it may be that Wise needs my ID but has no direct mechanism to request or upload it.

Just to clarify on the method you're using: you have two Wise accounts, one in $US and one in €(Euro), so you transfer from credit union to the Wise account in $, then do the currency conversion "inside" Wise, between the $ and the € accounts, then initiate the transfer from Wise € to French (€) outside Wise account, right? At which one of these three stages is the process failing?

Since the credit union app has it set up as a sort of black box, I don’t see my Wise accounts, thus am unable to pinpoint at what point the failure occurs. However the credit union has just sent an email saying international transfers are unavailable until Wise resolves their “technical problems” (the first failure was at least 8 days ago 🙄). They suggest instead using the Wise website or app until this is resolved. So that may reveal whether this is just a technical issue between Wise and my credit union, or if something else is going on.

Thanks everyone for your feedback.

 

Similar experience here. About a year ago, each time I logged on to my Wise account there was a message asking me to verify myself. I kept putting off doing it and eveything seemed to work... until one day it stopped allowing me to do transactions. I did the verification, which actually I found a bit of a pain, and all was good again.

 

I'm sure I read somewhere that Wise has ambitions to obtain a banking license but I can't find any links on a quick search. Revolut has just done this and is now recognised as a bank by the European Central Bank. Perhaps tightening up on identification is part of Wise's process of brushing up its CV?

Just to add, I had the same experience of being asked for ID, about a year ago IIRC, after being with Wise pretty much from the start. I don't think any transactions were blocked, but I do remember there were dire warnings about bad things happening if I didn't do it. I did, and everything has continued to go smoothly.

 

Wise has registered as a proper bank - apparently with the UK bank authority - and yes, quite a few of their processes have "tightened up" since that happened. About a year ago, Wise abruptly changed the US bank they were using to process their US$ transfers. And as it turns out, the bank they used to use went bust a couple of months after the changeover date. (Yes, I had a transfer get messed up due to having ignored the "be sure to change your bank information" a bit longer than I should have.)

Honestly, I've never used anything but the Wise site itself for making transfers and I'd seriously hesitate to use a bank or credit union "pass through" arrangement. With the "upgrade" to a real bank there has been some change to the information you need to provide when making payments to the Wise US$ account - best to go by Wise's instructions rather than to trust your bank to "do it for you."

 

Honestly, I've never used anything but the Wise site itself for making transfers and I'd seriously hesitate to use a bank or credit union "pass through" arrangement. With the "upgrade" to a real bank there has been some change to the information you need to provide when making payments to the Wise US$ account - best to go by Wise's instructions rather than to trust your bank to "do it for you."

Well, I wouldn’t trust most financial institutions but I’m familiar with this credit union (wrote a paper on them for biz school as it happens) and they’ve had this link to Wise for quite some time due to having many members who are foreign nationals. It was super convenient to get started and there’s a discount on the already low rate Wise charges. It worked great up until it broke. 😭

At this point the biggest drawback (aside from not getting the funds back yet) is Wise can’t communicate with me directly so I’m somewhat in the dark. However I was able to find my account on Wise’s website, update some fields, and try a test transfer. Which so far has not gone through, but it’s still the weekend.

Thank you again everyone for your responses, all very helpful.

 

My problems only occurred very recently and I did the ID verification the same day. I don't however hold funds in Wise, I just do straight exchanges. The instructions for how to take your photo and submit your ID could be clearer, so I spent close to an hour doing something that I could easily have done in 10 minutes or less

 

I have stopped using Wise. Too many issues.
"we see this is your first transfer"...not
"we see this is a new computer"...not
"we are sorry for the delay"...no they aren't
repeated requests to send proof of who I am because I am new...not
minutes for a transfer...not. becoming 8+ days
We've received your funds, followed by days of NOT transferring them.
The single largest offense, Telling me they received my funds and have made the transfer...BEFORE they actually draw my funds SEVERAL days later, causing overdraw at my home bank, followed by freezing my account until I pay them what I "owe" them. NEVER B.S. me.
They sit on your money every weekend and holiday in both the US and France (Bastille day is not a national holiday, nor is Saturday or Monday a banking holiday in the US. Process your withdrawal cue.

My U.S. credit union immediately...THAT DAY, pays out withdrawal requests.

I cannot fault them for Credit Lyonaise delaying posting the transfer, except I can't believe Wise when they tell me they have transferred the funds.

I use OFX with marginally better service. After complaining that their speed claims were bogus, they admitted a 5 WORKING day was the normal minimum, 8 days the norm. That honest admission gives them my business.

I understand there are international transfer security issues that are very real. SAY SO and be explicit. don't feed me hohwash.

I have yet to find an instant or even fairly fast transfer method.

 

I don't know what issues Americans experience with Wise transfers, all I know is that once I did the ID verification with them, my transfers started arriving in my French bank within a couple of minutes. My previous experience had already been very good, but then my bank in my home country transfers my funds immediately to Wise. It used to bug me though that previously the Wise account I had to transfer the funds to (JP Morgan) didn't operate on weekends in my home country where banks are open on Saturdays.

 

I guess it may depend on what kind of transfers you're doing, the amounts involved, etc. But I've been using Wise for years now and while I've run into the weekend thing, it has always been fairly clear that it's due to the French banking rules and "customs" (i.e. nothing gets posted to your account on Saturdays or Mondays). Then again, in the early days (with "Transferwise") I was doing my best not to let on to the US banks that I was making the transfers via Transferwise because the main goal then was to avoid the hefty international bank wire fees on both ends of the transaction.

Still, these new fangled financial arrangements are always going to come down to your specific needs and expectations. Have you looked into something like Revolut?

 

In maybe 10 years or more with Wise and using them a lot, on and off, in various ways, I've had very few issues. Transfers usually arirve in seconds. I used to like it when the money was credited to one account before being debited to the other, made me feel rich for a few days, although that lag doesn't seem to happen any more.

 

I've used Wise to transfer funds from the US to Europe so I'm only familiar with its transfers to Europe. Those transfers have been mostly instantaneous and some take maximum one business day (that's because the receiving banks can't receive instant transfers), so overall I'm pretty happy with Wise.

 

I believe Saturday is a bank holiday in the US. At least my US banks and credit unions won't execute outgoing online transactions on Saturdays untill Monday. There might be exceptions but I'm not personally aware of them.

Is Monday a bank holiday in France? I didn’t know that... My French bank seems to be closed on Saturdays but open on Mondays. Is this not the norm in France?

 

I believe Saturday is a bank holiday in the US. At least my US banks and credit unions won't execute outgoing online transactions on Saturdays untill Monday. There might be exceptions but I'm not personally aware of them.

Is Monday a bank holiday in France? I didn’t know that... My French bank seems to be closed on Saturdays but open on Mondays. Is this not the norm in France?

Most bricks and mortar banks in France, close on a Monday , but banking systems remain operational.

 

And on the subject of 'Banks' ......

Revolut customers say e-money firm failed them after being scammed

Revolut was named in more complaints about fraud last year than any of the UK’s biggest banks or e-money services.

www.bbc.com

There is also a panorama investigation on BBC TV this evening into 'Revolut'

Be careful out there......

 

It depends entirely on how you registered for your Wise account in the first place.

If you're a US-based Wise customer, you get a USD bank detail (through Community Federal Savings Bank) where you get an ABA routing and checking numbers - and unless you've done something "suspicious" (doesn't sound like you have), this should continue to work - you can transfer money in and out of your credit unions (or other US-based banks) for free.

HOWEVER, if you originally registered for your Wise account from any other countries (i.e. non-US), they have started taking away your USD bank details. This is buried in their FAQ on their website (and of course, not broadly announced). For awhile now, all new (non-US) Wise members had not been getting USD bank details, but many folks who registered "a long time ago" still had it, until early August when they started taking it away. The only recourse is to change your address with Wise to indicate a US based address, although that may open a can of worms with other thing (your taxes, etc) as your account would then be US-based (and God knows you might lose something else!).

This might not apply to you ,but it may be useful info for others. But if you did lose your USD bank detail (even if you may still see it listed), your incoming/outgoing transfer will get rejected every time (may not be instantly rejected - it may "appear" to go through but then it gets returned to your account).

For now, for those who had indeed lost their US bank account number thru Wise (and yes, it sucks having to pay extra just to get your money in and out of Wise), your only recourse are as follow:

1. If you're transferring under USD2500, link your US-based checking account via ACH. Start the linkage from your Wise account either on their website or their app), and once set up, your transfer will be charged 0.25% flat fee.

2. If you're transferring over USD2500, it's cheaper to go with wire transfer, ASSUMING your bank does not charge for outgoing wire transfer (many don't, especially if you're their top customers, you can Google it), as they only charge a flat USD6.11 for each wire transfer.

Don't expect Wise Customer Service to educate you on these or even bother to respond to you, unfortunately.

 

For awhile now, all new (non-US) Wise members had not been getting USD bank details, but many folks who registered "a long time ago" still had it, until early August when they started taking it away.

I'm not sure this is exactly how things are happening. If you are registered from outside the US, you only get a "US bank account" if you set up a USD account (in addition to whatever currency account for your country of residence). You can set up unlimited accounts in the various currencies Wise handles - like Euros, USD and GBP - and only transfer the fund when you need them, or when you make purchases using your Wise credit card (so that you don't have to pay the card exchange or "foreign transaction" fees).

Wise only switched to Community Federal Savings last autumn, when there were apparently problems with the US bank they had been using. It can take a while to learn how to use the various services that Wise offers - and also, re charges for transferring > $2500, make sure you ascertain whether or not your receiving bank makes a charge for "receiving" an international bank wire. In France, it's common practice to do so and the charges tend to be at least €20 or so.

 

Update: Actual human beings from the credit union called this week to apologize for the ongoing “technical issues” and told me the credit union would credit my account in advance of the Wise refunds, which had not shown up yet after many days. That happened the next day. Then a couple of emails from Wise showed up to let me know that the transactions cancelled 1 and 2 weeks earlier had been cancelled. Better late than never, I guess.

Then the next day an email from the credit union letting us know the Wise international transfer service was again available and politely apologizing again for the disruption. (In my experience credit unions are always polite.) So supposedly things are back to normal, though I haven’t tested it yet.

Meanwhile my husband and I decided to keep a little buffer in our French checking account for a safety net in case we ever find ourselves back on this merry-go-round.

 

Well I do think that it was entirely up to your credit union to fix this and that they are responsible.

I fairly recently had issues with my home country's bank not allowing me to access funds in my account (which as it happens I wanted to transfer to Wise - it's all I ever do with that account because I have a pension that it's not possible to have transferred to France - and after 2 complaints I made on the same day via their automated complaints system, a lovely woman called me and sorted it all out during the call.

 

Nothing to worry about - those "accounts" only relate to the stashes of currency you are holding. I recently opened a GBP "account" to have a little sterling available for making purchases from the UK. Once you have a Wise account, you can open up those currency accounts in pretty much whatever currency they deal in.

 

i understand what you are saying about the flexibility in using different currency account. So you mean Wise will allow me to keep the US registered account even though I no longer live in the US?

 

I have just noticed the title of this thread. A quick browse around other expat forums recently will show many people are having a variety of problems with them, and although I have been with them for over ten years I am seriously considering taking my business elsewhere. Any recommendations for an alternative would be most welcome. I/we move a small amount each month from UK to France (our pensions) which are among the lowest in Europe.

 

I don't know of any currency exchange company that does not now require ID verification, in fact Wise was late to the party. Wise actually has a very nifty system for ID verification and it's not as if you have to verify your ID with every transfer, though it's quite likely they will require you to do so on perhaps an annual or biannual basis. You also have to remember that the ID verification protects you and your funds transfers.

 

~Whatever 76
We are currently in the middle of trying to use their "nifty" system and it totally sucks. They are asking for a live selfie holding a piece of I.D., half a dozen other documents including bank statements for the last 3 years, a statement of our projected "volume", etc. We are still waiting for an answer to the question of what they mean by volume. Our pensions change annually. Nobody on the planet knows what it will be next year so how can we say? If we have to put up with this nonsense every year or two if will be worth going back to a bank to bank transfer and all the charges that will entail.

 

You can put in for example the 'lowest amount you receive, it doesn't matter if you exceed it and it's what I did, though I'm sure you will have some objection to doing that. Sooner or later you are going to find yourself in real strife if you don't at least change your mobile phone.

 

Only the expensive ones. We have looked into it because SMS bank security codes only work with them. I think they call it wifi calling.

 

Rubbish, you can get a reconditioned phone for example.

 

you can get a specific country telephone number thru many outlets... Skype being one option...

 

I respect you for your knowledgable tech advice but this is all getting way too stressful. I have just checked and I am also locked out of my Wise account unless I can negotiate the Verification hurdles. I shall be looking for another method to transfer funds from UK to France. The latest email from Wise suggests we have a family member or friend do it for us. I am the last of my family and the nearest friend is 262km away and a seven hour trek each way by car and ferry. Wise is essentially requiring people to own a smartphone and put all your data on it for who-knows-who to plunder at will.

 

Wise is essentially requiring people to own a smartphone and put all your data on it for who-knows-who to plunder at will.

No .. not quite. I won't use mobile Banking and use my laptop instead.
There were options within the Wise demands to use your computer and home wifi to send them the verifications they requested.

 

For us an hour ago they require we take a photo, holding the documents near the face, to send to them. Our phone doesn't have a photo sending "app" and the desktop PC doesn't have a webcam. I built it myself and never added one because we never use one. If they want to send me the required "devices" I will attempt to send them what they want. Umbrella at the ready for flying pig protection.

 

Our phone doesn't have a photo sending "app" and the desktop PC doesn't have a webcam.

Take a photo on your phone or digital camera, upload it to your pc and email it?

 

Have you looked at Optimal Currency ? I opened an account with them earlier this year although as I am happy with Wise, I have never used them. You will need to take a photo of your passport page and a utility bill showing your address , but this is sent by email. The rest is a bit clunky for me, but probably refreshingly old-school for you mate.

 

Apparently he can't take a photo at all and doesn't want to change his phone for another no matter how inexpensive that might be.

 

I am one of those folks who will not put financial or payment stuff on my mobile phone. But I have had no problems like those being described in this thread with using Wise - and no requests for sending photographs of myself holding documents. Maybe I'm just not using the "features" on Wise that require these measures. Or maybe I just don't understand the problems folks seem to be running into.

 

I'm perfectly comfortable with banking apps on my phone and now use it contactless for the majority of my spending but what I really dropped in to say is that like you, and over some 6 years of using my Wise A/C, I've had none of the issues being described here. Most however seem to be related to transactions with US banks.

I had one brief hiccup when I gave a friend some excess Euros I was holding in exchange for which he did a Sterling equivalent transfer from one of his UK bank accounts, which was not registered in Wise, to my UK account which was. Sending the money to Wise was OK but crediting to me was by initially blocked because it was a substantial sum (several thousand) and they wanted verification of the source, once I informed them that he was a Wise customer and gave them his A/C number and email address all was well and the transfer went through without further delay.

BTW with no mobile service what Befuddled needs is a Femto cell which, from memory, Orange were offering in 2017 when we left and moved to Spain.

 

When I opened my Monese account I spoke - video chat - with a real person. Showed my passport photo page and my face.
Account open - it is linked to my US PayPal account, French, Spanish, Italian and BoA bank accounts pretty much since they have been open and have never had no other requests thru SMS, thru the app or email.... except when my debit card is about to expire and to order another - deliverable to any address in the world......
I have a business account and personal account with them..
I guess Befuddled will just have to stick with brick and mortar - high street banks or cash if he/she does not want to embrace todays technology...

Does not France help senior citizens with this with courses and/or face to face help - free of charge...

 

Does not France help senior citizens with this with courses and/or face to face help - free of charge...

Sure they do - but the exact resources depend on where you're located and whether or not someone is interested in devoting some time and attention to learning new processes and buying a bit of new equipment (smart phone, tablet, etc.).