Wise plc

For the first half of FY26, Wise reported active customers above 13 million, cross-border volume of GBP 85 billion, and customer holdings above GBP 25 billion. Personal customers grew 18% to 12.8 million, business customers grew 17% to 613,000, card spend exceeded GBP 15 billion, and card revenue was GBP 132 million, up 28% year over year. Underlying income rose 16% to GBP 750 million, cross-border revenue increased 5%, and the cross-border take rate declined 10 basis points to 52 basis points. Management said underlying PBT margin was at the top of the 13% to 16% target range, and reported PBT including additional interest income beyond the first 1% was GBP 255 million. Full-year FY26 guidance was reiterated: underlying income growth of 15% to 20% on a constant-currency basis and underlying PBT of around 16%, excluding a one-off listing expense of circa GBP 25 million to GBP 35 million.

Kristo Kaarmann emphasized that Wise is seeing customers and businesses use the product more deeply, helped by product improvements, infrastructure investments and word-of-mouth referrals that he said account for about 70% of discovery. He framed the lower pricing as a deliberate strategy to widen the moat, support larger transactions and increase customer trust and holdings, while keeping the company focused on being the lowest-cost, best-infrastructure provider. His tone was confident and expansive, with repeated comments that the company is still early in a large market opportunity.

Emmanuel Thomassin focused on disciplined reinvestment and said the company is still delivering within its long-term framework. He cited servicing investment of GBP 134 million, marketing and sales investment of GBP 57 million, tech and development spend of GBP 144 million, and corporate function/infrastructure spend of GBP 131 million, with administrative expense expected to be around GBP 1 billion for the full year. He highlighted customer holdings above GBP 25 billion, non-cross-border revenue at 41% of underlying income, and said the company repurchased half of the incremental 25 million shares moved into the Employee Benefit Trust. He also reiterated that full-year PBT guidance excludes the one-off listing cost of about GBP 25 million to GBP 35 million.

Analysts pressed on Wise Platform growth, pricing, marketing ROI, instant payments, stablecoins, hiring, and the impact of lower take rates. Management said Wise Platform volume growth is coming from both newer onboarded partners and ramping volumes at earlier integrations, and reiterated the medium-term target of 10% of volume and a long-term target of 50%. On stablecoins, Kristo said Wise’s advantage is its regulatory and local payment network infrastructure, and that the company is being deliberate rather than making a broad bet on any one payment scheme. On pricing, management said the lower take rate was intentional and mostly driven by Wise setting lower fees, with some mix shift effects, and that price cuts are a long-term strategy that already showed an immediate volume response.