Wise (WISE.L), formerly doing business as Transferwise, has finally launched its first iteration of an investment feature. A long, long time ago, Wise said it intended to create more options to hold funds that can generate a return.
Last year, it was reported that Wise had received approval from the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to offer retail investment services.
At the beginning of 2021, CI reported that according to the FCA registry, “TIVN,” affiliated with Wise, had been approved to offer various retail investment services.
Now, Wise Assets has launched in Beta for customers based in the UK.
According to the Wise help page, UK customers may choose to hold cash in “jars” (a long time feature) or “stocks” in the form of an index-tracking fund that has been selected by Wise.
Clearly, this is the first small step but a large move into the world of investments and other financial services as Wise morphs from a highly efficient money mover to a Fintech stealth bank.
The first and only option will be the iShares World Equity Index Fund, managed by BlackRock. The fund tracks the MSCI World Index. Users will pay a service fee of 0.55% annually and a fund fee of 0.15% annually with both fees subtracted automatically.
Prior to this if you wanted to put your cash to work you had to move it out of your Wise account. Now, at least for UK customers, you may choose to park it at Wise and perhaps generate a gain. You may expect a growing number of options over the coming months as Wise moves beyond a single fund. As Wise is a global operation, the market opportunity is enormous but the compliance hurdle is quite large. Hopefully, the US and continental Europe are next in the queue.
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