Wise, the global tech company building the best way to move money around the world, announced Wednesday it is bolstering its Asia ambitions, with the company on track to hit over 400 employees in Singapore by the end of 2022, doubling its team here since the start of the year.

Since launching in the country in 2016, the Singapore office — Wise’s asia pacific (APAC) hub — has grown from strength to strength and will now account for 10 percent of Wise’s global workforce, Wise said in a statement.

Over the last 18 months, Wise has also grown from 2,400 to over 4,000 people globally.

Driven by rising customer need for easier, quicker and cheaper cross-border payments, Wise said it is continuing to invest across the business, in line with the company’s long term model of sustainable growth and profitability.

This includes growing its product, infrastructure and team, to achieve its mission of money without borders for international people, businesses and financial institutions.

“It’s been a significant year for Wise in this region and globally, but there’s still a huge amount of work to do to achieve our mission of money without borders,” said Harsh Sinha, Chief Technology Officer at Wise.

“Wise’s strong business fundamentals and product proposition coupled with continued demand for better cross-border payments gives us a strong opportunity to continue doubling down on our growth,” he added.

This follows a busy, action-packed year for Wise, with the company rolling out a series of new services and strategic partnerships.

Most recently, Wise Platform, Wise’s infrastructure offer for banks and non-banks alike, announced its new International Receive service, meaning customers from banks of all sizes can quickly, easily and affordably receive cross-border payments via the SWIFT network, even if their bank is not connected to SWIFT.

Within the region, Wise Platform has also gone live this year with Tiger Brokers, a Singapore-based investment platform, and GoTrade, a Malaysia-based investment platform.

Wise Platform is now live with more than 50 bank and non-bank partners across the world, including Aspire in Singapore and Shinhan Bank in South Korea.

Wise marks significant progress on its mission in Asia Pacific as well. In Singapore, Wise recently rolled out its Linked Bank Account feature which harnesses eGIRO to enable individual customers to complete transfers and payments seamlessly without leaving the app.

Last March, Wise also became one of the first non-bank financial institutions to integrate directly in the FAST (Singapore’s real time payments system), and in September 2021, became the first fintech in Australia to gain approval to join the New Payments Platform (NPP) as a Direct Participant.

Wise has also expanded more broadly in the region. After entering Singapore in July 2016, Wise launched its low-cost and fast transfers in Japan, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, and India.

The company also brought its Wise account and debit card to Australia, New Zealand and Singapore in 2019, as well as in Japan and Malaysia in 2021.

In addition to serving consumers, Wise also deepened its focus on serving businesses — companies in Singapore, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong can use Wise Business to grow and operate internationally.

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