TransferWise Doubles Annual Profit, Adds Millions of Customers

(Bloomberg) -- TransferWise Ltd. said annual profit more than doubled as it attracted millions of new customers with an expansion of its money-transfer business around the world.

Pretax profit for the year ended March 31 rose to 20.4 million pounds ($26 million) from 10.1 million pounds a year earlier, the London-based startup said in an annual report. A surge in cross-border transactions drove a 70% increase in revenue to 302.6 million pounds, Chief Financial Officer Matt Briers said. About 26% of revenue came from the U.S., up from 25% from a year ago.

TransferWise, which says it can move money at a lower cost than banks and traditional transfer services, said its customer base grew to 7 million as of March 31 from 5 million a year earlier -- and jumped to 8 million in recent months amid the pandemic.

“If there is a tailwind from Covid, it’s just the shift from the status quo of banks to trying a new tech-based service,” Briers said. “The barriers to doing that have definitely dropped.”

The closely held firm initially saw transfer volumes fluctuate as foreign-exchange rates changed during the pandemic, before volume stabilized, Briers said. TransferWise is valued at $5 billion based on a secondary share sale in July, it said in a statement.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.