“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” — Leo Tolstoy
We live in a world addicted to speed. News in seconds. Groceries in minutes. Money in clicks. Speed feels like the ultimate currency. And yet, the people and companies that persevere often emerge victorious by playing the long game.
Great companies often begin with a personal frustration. Shopify started when Tobias Lütke just wanted to sell snowboards online. Lütke saw the opportunity for better e-commerce tools and built the Shopify platform from scratch.
Wise (then TransferWise) started the same way. In 2011, Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Käärmann were tired of losing money on hidden bank fees every time they moved money between Estonia and the UK.
At the time, betting against the global banking system looked almost naïve. Banks had the brand, the trust, and the distribution. What they also had were the fees.
Wise was born to fight those fees—and the pain millions faced in sending money abroad.
That frustration turned into a mission—and today Wise moves £140B a year.
Banks remain the most expensive channel; Wise is tackling this with faster, cheaper, more transparent payments.
Several studies by HSBC and Deloitte show that companies that are mission-driven tend to outperform the market by a significant margin.
We believe Wise business demonstrates continuous improvement over time, driven by its embedded flywheel loops that enhance performance with increased scale and duration. This ultimately creates a win-win situation for both the customer and the business.
The Key Highlights of Why We Own Wise
- Mission that matters: “Money without borders”—fast, fair, transparent transfers.
- Founder skin in the game: CEO Kristo Käärmann still owns ~18% (£2B stake). All employees are shareholders.
- Cheaper & faster: Cheaper than banks; often instant settlement. The average fee is 0.53%, with full transparency → hard for incumbents to match.
- Network effects: More customers = more liquidity = faster, cheaper transfers.
- Compounding engine: Two out of three of new customers come via referrals → trust drives scale → scale drives lower fees → which attracts more customers.
- Massive runway: ~£32T cross-border payments market; Wise handles just ~£140B/year. That’s only ~5% of retail and less than 1% of the SMB market. Huge runway.
- Wise Platform: APIs now power banks and fintechs like Morgan Stanley, Brex, Ramp, and Monzo.
- Recent wins: Integrated into Google Wallet & Search (Aug 2025) for U.S. remittances.
- Next chapter: Wise is moving its primary listing to the U.S. (2025), signalling ambition to play on the biggest stage.
- Valuation: Trading near the cheapest multiple since IPO. Our DCF base case (~15% growth) suggests a ~20% margin of safety.
The Risks We Watch
Even disruptors stumble. For Wise, the pressure points are clear: here’s what we monitor and why we believe Wise is well-positioned to manage them.
- Fee compression/price wars → As Wise drives fees lower (some corridors now ~0.53%), volumes must scale faster than margins shrink.
- Security & trust → In June 2024, a partner bank breach exposed customers. Any erosion of trust means higher acquisition costs and weaker referrals.
- Competition → From all sides: incumbents (banks, PayPal, Western Union), challengers (Remitly, Revolut, Atlantic Money), and Big Tech (Google, Apple, Meta).
- Macro & FX volatility → Currency shocks and recessions reduce remittance flows.
- Execution & regulation → Slower corridor approvals, compliance across 65+ regulators, and rising fraud/cybersecurity risks.
Behavioural economists talk about delay discounting, our tendency to undervalue future rewards. Most companies chase quarterly numbers to please investors. Wise chose the harder path.
Instead, Wise Investing has early direct connections to 70+ banks and 65+ regulators worldwide. Expensive and slow at the time. But today, those pipes form an almost unassailable moat.
Wise feels like one of those rare fintechs that grew without losing its soul. It still carries the DNA of a customer’s frustration turned into a mission to make money without borders.
If patience and time are the ultimate warriors, Wise is showing what happens when you give them a cause. That’s why we own Wise—and why we believe time is on our side.
Warren Buffett put it best: “The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.”
Awet Ghirmay, Head of Investment Research
If you want to learn more about this topic, please find the link here.
More information about our fund can be found here: Hargreaves Lansdown or AJ Bell.
Risk warnings
The value of investments and the income derived from them may fall as well as rise. You may not get back what you invest. This communication is for general information only and is not intended to be individual advice. You are recommended to seek competent professional advice before taking any action. All statements concerning the tax treatment of products and their benefits are based on our understanding of current tax law and HM Revenue and Customs practice. Levels and bases of tax relief are subject to change. This blog is based on my own observations and opinions.
