Wise helps fintechs operate like a bank without actually becoming one. First in Australia.

Global payments platform Wise – used by 16 million people and processing over $17.3 billion in cross-border transactions a month – has chosen Australia as the place to internationally launch its new Banking as a service offering.

Wise have partnered with local leaders Parpera and ProSpend, who will be the first Australian fintechs to use Wise’s infrastructure to create business deposits, multi-currency accounts, digital debit cards and cross-border payments services via their own app.

The deal effectively lets the fintechs operate like a bank, without actually becoming one, by using Wise’s purchased payments facility licence, granted by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority in late 2020, according to Australian Financial Review.

Parpera will use Wise Platform to relaunch a business account, after its operations were pushed back by the collapse exactly a year ago of Volt Bank, which was also offering banking-as-a-service to facilitate access to deposits and payments before it ran out of funding.

ProSpend, a business spend management app to help staff make expense claims and to manage reimbursements for companies, will use Wise to let corporate customers issue instant digital debit cards to employees’ phones and to process payments to a central, multi-currency account.

“Traditional international banking solutions still don’t work well for businesses, and require them to use too many external tools from a range of providers to allow them to do what they need,” says Daniel McCarth – commercial lead Asia Pacific at Wise Platform.

“The release of Wise Platform’s new features brings us one step closer to solving this pain point, enabling more businesses to expand and operate internationally, without worrying about managing complex, multi-currency cash flow.”

„Initially, Wise Platform will enable us to offer Australian Sole Traders and Small Business Owners access to a Business Account, Business Debit Mastercard®, and payments – along with our invoicing, cash flow and tax management solutions – all in the Parpera App. And later, we’ll extend our partnership to multi-currency wallets, and cross-border payments, unlocking greater value for businesses on our platform by enabling you to do business globally with ease.” says Daniel Cannizzaro – Founder & CEO Parpera.