why don't you deal with a regular bank instead?
it's not my business, but is it worth it?
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Dont trust Wise
- Thread starter Alexmorgan
- Start date
it's not my business, but is it worth it?
I loved my Wise account, until I moved my personal/tax residency to UAE and updated Wise. They disabled my entire account across all currencies.
But after living in UAE for a year, I realized this is more of a UAE thing not Wise. My EMIs started dropping like flies. The Emirates likes to control people's money and communication with an iron fist. Wise probably backed out because of the UAE not you.
Avoid AED everywhere if possible; it's inviting the UAE into your business.
But after living in UAE for a year, I realized this is more of a UAE thing not Wise. My EMIs started dropping like flies. The Emirates likes to control people's money and communication with an iron fist. Wise probably backed out because of the UAE not you.
Avoid AED everywhere if possible; it's inviting the UAE into your business.
So what you mean is that Wise is forced to shut down accounts which are owned by people living in the UAE ?
Yes, Wise is not regulated in UAE: How is Wise regulated in each country/region? | Wise Help Centre
And maybe expanded beyond "people living there" but when accounts involve currencies from unregulated regions.
And maybe expanded beyond "people living there" but when accounts involve currencies from unregulated regions.
Once bitten twice shy.
Fintech firm Wise fined $360,000 by Abu Dhabi regulator
https://www.reuters.com/technology/fintech-firm-wise-fined-360000-by-abu-dhabi-regulator-2022-08-30/
Does Wise have a presence in the UAE?
I suppose it's affirmative
How else is the Abu Dhabi regulator going to enforce this BS otherwise?
Bro... opening the AED balance in their app is likely just a UI thing, probably didn't even trigger anything in their backend.
Your AED IBAN is the same as your other non-local balances, you could have received AED anytime without opening it.
There is a small chance that opening that AED balance actually triggered something and it notified them that you will use AED currency soon, but more likely you were already on their ban list and they just needed an excuse, if you hadn't done that, your account would have been closed anyway for some other reason.
If you spent 10 minutes reading reviews about Wise you would know they even close accounts routinely for EU citizens/residents operating an EU company.
Yes EMIs often block Western-African citizens living in Somaliland operating Comoros companies.
Sure it's not fair, in an ideal word this shouldn't happen but those EMIs are for profit companies too, not charity, if you want safety for your business go crypto or find local banks and explain them your business model.
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As has been mentioned many times in this thread already, I also believe that the story is quite different from the one you're telling here. It's a bit like all those who claim they've done nothing wrong when they are caught evading taxes.
What you think i did?
Did i moved cartels money? Or sent money to Russia?
Anyway I don't need it anymore
The whole world is toxic. But certain things work for some while the very same things don't work for others. It is always a matter of appetite what individuals and companies are up to. I would say that Wise and PayPal both work very well for westerners living and paying tax in westener countries abiding by the laws and not selling anything high-risk. There are many threads with people who "did nothing wrong" and have their accounts closed pretty much anywhere. If you dig a bit further, they were involved in hacking, laundering, tax evasion, etc. No wonder they closed their accounts. Even in old Greece you would get punished for getting caught.
Did you open your Wise accounts when you were living in UK and didn't bother to update it after moving to Bahrain or did you slip through their compliance due to the below?
They had a presence in ADGM from July 2019 to Sept 2023 when they ran for their lives
As you can see from details of the AML failure settlement below they did not take "nationality" into their risk based assessments. Their compliance system looks to have been garbage so its quite likely high risk people slipped through the cracks and were able to signup. As a business my guess is rather than do an account blitz which would have affected their metrics [keep in mind they were trying to list on LSE at the time
] they took a slower approach of closing down accounts slowly over time based on perhaps certain risk triggers in the higher risk accounts.https://www.adgm.com/public-registers/fsra/fsf/documents/d314d526379f441e96cfc2906389b2c7.ashx
Pp is much easier to deal with without account and just pay by card I’ve found
Goddamn! UAE went full racist on Wise, huh? Like WTF???!!!
If the UK started reciprocating this behavior and excluding the UAE citizens from everything in the UK, the Arabs would scream bloody murder! F*cking hypocrites!
I've used Wise for 7 years. It think it's great. I've had a few low and mid 5 figures transactions here and there, but use it as a daily expense account when abroad. Never had any problems. I don't think it's smart to use Wise (or any EMI) for anything more than that.
Moral of the story: Use a real bank (50 years+ in business)... and don't do shady stuff. All will be good
Moral of the story: Use a real bank (50 years+ in business)... and don't do shady stuff. All will be good
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TrueOk, then it seems their risk appetite has tightened since you opened sadly.
Seems its not only with since this guy spoke about it
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