How Wirex aims to surge ahead of a stuttering crypto-curve
As one of the planet’s fastest-growing industries, fintech is well-suited to people who are passionate about technology — especially those who want to try to change the way finance works for people and businesses.
The thing is, the people best-suited to the fintech industry haven’t always been those best-suited to making quick profits. Extensive research on fintech financing and performance shows that valuation growth for most of the start-ups in the sector is strong on paper, but revenue growth and profitability continue to be a challenge, even for the companies which have been operating for more than five years.
Using findings based on a sample of 39 privately-held British fintech companies, as of the end of 2018, these 39 companies had raised a total of £1.35bn in equity financing, had a total valuation of £4.31bn (as of their last round of funding), but had incurred cumulative losses of £469m.
Only Wise is reporting as operating break-even and though valuations on paper may be good, investors will ultimately only be happy when they have a successful exit. However, using this 5-year success rule shines a light on Wirex, an innovative app and payment card that allows its users to send, receive, exchange, and spend a range of digital and conventional currencies.
A word from within is that six years after its inception in 2014, Wirex has turned profitable and is focussing on monetizing its growth and becoming a fully sustainable business model.
How has it worked for Wirex though?
Mainly by specializing in combining traditional “fiat” currencies with cryptocurrencies where other fintech companies have struggled.
Having launched the world’s first crypto-enabled Visa card in 2018, as well as becoming the first crypto-friendly Mastercard principal member in 2020, Wirex is seeking to add to the list of more than 130 countries where they already operate all over North America, Europe, and Asia.
Within these countries, Wirex provides a staggering 54 million locations to send, receive, exchange, and spend any one of 12 fiat and 10 crypto-currencies, which is something that could really bring crypto-currency to the masses.
It’s the true democratization of currency as we know it. Wirex works just like any other bank account but crucially has two differences. It allows you to store cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and a few others. What’s more, it also rewards you in Bitcoin or WXT for spending on everyday items. When signing up to Wirex, you apply for a debit card which is shipped to you within a week.
Once you activate the card, you’ll receive a wallet with the currency that is based on the country in which you reside. For example, if you live in the UK, a GBP wallet will appear in your account. You can simply top that wallet up with a wire transfer, debit, or credit card. It’s free and near-instantaneous.
So what do the numbers say?
The numbers are more than encouraging for Wirex. They have over 3.1 million users and a transaction revenue of more than $3bn — that’s 164% year-on-year revenue growth from July 2019 to June 2020. Forbes, CityA.M., Yahoo Finance, Bitcoin.com, and The Fintech Times have all mentioned Wirex as a leader of neo-digital banking and customer reviews state that Wirex has gone above and beyond in regard to day-to-day use and security, putting restrictions on the use which most banks don’t.
In an age of scams, fraud, and online hacking, this is highly reassuring. As millennials and Gen Z consumers are becoming more significant consumers of banking products, the banking sector is seeing a shift towards online-only banking with clients expecting lower fees and more responsiveness from their providers. This goes hand-in-hand with a growing interest in cryptocurrency, meaning that a product like Wirex that combines both of these elements could be a very attractive alternative to other forms of banking.
“We live in the digital era, and financial services have to keep up with the times — crypto and new digital user experience are what will drive payments in this century. As the popularity of cryptocurrency is growing and it becomes more accessible to consumers, the ability to spend cryptocurrency in the real world could be a game-changer.” — Pavel Matveev, co-founder of Wirex
Wirex’s founders have stated from the off that they hope to offer customers the ability to use conventional and digital currency seamlessly. However, the principal ambition for Wirex is to make affordable banking available to those who currently can’t afford it or who don’t have access to conventional banking options, estimated to be some 2 billion people worldwide.
With its current growth going in the right direction and an endeavor to reach a global audience of billions of people, Wirex may just end up being your primary bank.