Wio Bank officially launches in UAE

[troubled soul]

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/wio-bank-officially-launches-in-uae

 

[rowena]

It looks really promising and professional. It can be a game changer for SMEs in‌ UAE.

 

[PiersBlack]

Do they provide multi-currency account account or only AED?

 

[troubled soul]

As far as I know, It is only for AED

 

[Fred]

Only AED.

However it's at least something while there was earlier nothing - they have of‌ course low risk appetite and it's more a bit of an EMI kind of acting‍ from there side - the whole outgoing transfers are made through Wise - so it's⁠ equal to Bunq for example.

1% flat + FX for outgoing comes heavy especially when⁤ having some decent volume.

 

[Crest]

Im not sure how low⁣ their risk apetite is - I opened a Gold Trading activity with them without a⁢ single question asked, where other banks said no from the off

 

[Fred]

Exactly - nothing we can build on actually but a nice to have - time‌ will tell.

 

[sonato]

not bad, what's to complain here?

 

[joejohnM]

Please keep us posted when you start transacting on same, especially with international transfers .‌

 

[JimBeam]

Hopefully they will introduce multi-currency accounts.
Having just AED means nothing as you can't accept‌ money from outside in USD/EUR but it's nice to have an option like this.

 

[JackAlabama]

Is that the case with them?
It could also mean just⁠ everything being autoconverted into aed...

 

[Fred]

Exactly - that's the case - CITIBANK is the‍ AED IN correspondence and for outgoing SWIFT they use WISE.

It's not fully fledged Bank⁠ but for some Guys well they don't have any other option.

 

[JimBeam]

Yes, I walked in City⁠ branch in UAE and they tried to explain me how their foreign currency thing works⁤ - and it made absolutely no sense.

So, if Wio uses City - than it's⁣ goof for AED only (and will mostly be useful to mainland companies)

 

[Fred]

Again - it's AED IN International with the⁠ downside of auto conversion like @JackAlabama said - it's not only local AED within UAE.⁤

 

[Henry7]

For those of you who are still wondering about Wio multi currency accounts, it’s coming‌ in 2023

 

[turtle]

Wio started to issue USD accounts for UAE companies.

 

[JimBeam]

That's really a great news!!!
How about EUR?

 

[turtle]

Yes pretty‌ good news. Only USD but probably they will introduce other currencies in the future.

 

[Houdini]

That's great news. Once they introduce EUR and GBP I will consider them.

How is‌ the process to apply for an account, easy or troubled?

 

[Fred]

They did increase immediately the Compliance together with the USD Account introducing which of course‌ just make sense as they now have to go through a US based USD Correspondence‍ Bank.

See below to get an idea what I'm talking about.

No you have to⁠ run this through E-Mail because cool and fancy Wio Bank has to run Compliance same⁤ like every other Bank.

Taking this into consideration there are better options out there as⁣ of now.