When the internet is advancing every paradigm of our lifestyle, money transfer and overseas transactions are also made possible. While banks cost a lot of money as well as time for this process, businesses such as PayPal and TransferWise provide the cheapest ways to transact your money.
PayPal vs TransferWise
The main difference between PayPal and TransferWise is that PayPal has more hidden charges. On the other hand, TransferWise offers more fee transparency. TransferWise is an England based company, while PayPal is American based company. TransferWise provides money exchange in all major currencies, while PayPal has limited currency options.
PayPal is an online payment solution launched in 1998 with more than 325 million consumers. With PayPal, users can send and accept money without involving a card or cash. Services such as creating invoices, donating to a cause, creating a money pool, sending cash or bank deposits, renting a car or purchasing plane and train tickets online can be done fast and securely.
TransferWise has an alternate name, Wise and provides money transfer facilities that are easy, fast and cost-efficient. It was launched in 2011, since then, it has been growing fast. Due to affordable transaction fees for cross-border transactions, it grew into PayPal‘s emerging competitor. It is most probably due to fee transparency, and traditional bank wires are high priced.
Comparison Table Between PayPal and TransferWise
| Parameters of Comparison | PayPal | TransferWise |
| Users | PayPal has a huge user base, expanding beyond 325 million users. | TransferWise has a considerably smaller user base than PayPal, expanding to more than 10 million users. |
| International Service | It provides its services across 190+ countries. | It provides its services across 70+ countries. |
| Stock Exchange | PayPal is on the stock exchange | TransferWise is not on the stock exchange. |
| Fee Transparency | PayPal does not provide the fee transparency | TransferWise provides fee transparency. |
| Cost Savings | PayPal does not promote cost savings. | TransferWise promotes cost savings. |
| eCommerce Payments | PayPal integrates the online eCommerce payments. | TransferWise does not integrate online eCommerce payments. |
| Transaction Cards | For personal use, it provides prepaid cards and for the business purpose it provides debit cards, with extra charges for overseas use, currency conversation, etc. | It provides Master cards, and debit cards that can be used overseas, and for currency exchange, without the high cost. |
What is PayPal?
In 1998, PayPal was established by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek to make international money transactions safe and cheap. It acquired Honey to offer consumers coupons, to claim rewards.
It not only provides a money transfer service, but it also provides many aligned services. Signing up for PayPal is easy and costs nothing. After signing up, everyone automatically gets a PayPal Purchase Protection Plan, which refunds the money for failed transactions.
Here, everyone is given an option to make a personal or business account. Anyone can have more than one account to keep separate transactions. The further process of setting up an account will be guided as per the website.
You will be asked for your phone number, some personal details, and to set the password. To create a business account, you have to fill in additional information, such as the name of the business and the category of the business.
They have an easy to handle interface; hence it is easy to navigate through the website. The dashboard or home page is designed in such a way it shows your balance, recent activities, contacts, etc.
What is TransferWise?
TransferWise is also known as Wise. It was founded by Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Cayman in 2011 to make money transfers easy and fast at a low cost. They own 14 offices with more than 24000 staff members. They rebranded the company name from TransferWise to Wise.
They have around 10 million active consumers, which makes more than ₤4.5 billion transactions each month. They provide their services to more than 70 countries of international transactions with mid-market exchange rates and transparent fees.
Anyone who opens an account on the Wise is given two choices, personal or business account. Anyone can have more than one account on Wise. For a successful transaction, the sender needs a Wise account, but the receiver does not necessarily need to have a Wise account.
The website interface is made user-friendly, and it is easy to navigate through it. Their home page or dashboard is designed to show options like send money, receive money and get a debit card, but you can see the recipients list as well. You need to set up the banking information to be able to receive or send money to your bank account.
Main Differences Between PayPal and TransferWise
- PayPal has a huge user base, more than 325 million users. TransferWise has a relatively small user base of around 10 million users.
- Both of them operate internationally, but TransferWise operates in more than 70 countries. While PayPal operates in 190+ countries.
- PayPal is on the stock exchange, but TransferWise is not on the stock exchange.
- TransferWise has fee transparency and cost savings, but PayPal does not.
- PayPal has a service that integrates eCommerce payments, but Transferwise does not.
- TransferWise provides Master cards and Debit cards for international use, without any extra charge. PayPal also provides prepaid cards for personal use and Debit cards for business use but charges additional fees for abroad use, currency exchange, etc.
Conclusion
Both of them are financial technology companies, made to transact money internationally in a cheap and time-saving way. Wise as well as PayPal are free to sign-up. They are easy to provide international money transfers for personal and small to medium businesses.
For every transaction, they charge some fee. Depending upon the kind of transaction, the charge will vary in both. Even though fees for transactions are similar, the exchange rate makes up the difference in the transaction charges.
So, according to your needs and requirements, you can choose PayPal or Wise. Both are secure and safe modes of a transaction if you are transferring money internationally. Both companies charge almost the same for transactions.
References
- https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Simon-Grima/publication/323114264_The_Payment_Services_Directive_2_and_Competitiveness_The_Perspective_of_European_Fintech_Companies/links/5a80645aaca272a73769d406/The-Payment-Services-Directive-2-and-Competitiveness-The-Perspective-of-European-Fintech-Companies.pdf
- https://uis.brage.unit.no/uis-xmlui/handle/11250/2587148