Curve vs Wise - Everything you need to know before choosing

Curve® is an innovative digital wallet that lets you add payment cards you already have, to unify them all with one Curve card. You can then pay with your Curve card and draw funds from any of your linked credit or debit cards to cover the costs.

Wise is also a digital account and card, which lets you hold and exchange 40+ currencies and spend in 150+ countries. There’s no fee to spend any currency you hold and low conversion fees from just 0.43%.

Curve and Wise have slightly different features which may mean one appeals to you more than the other - or you may want to get both. Read this review of Curve vs Wise compared to see which might work best for your needs.

Learn more about Wise

What is Curve?

Curve¹ is a digital wallet and card which lets you add a selection of linked credit and debit cards, so you can carry just one Curve card but choose to pay with any of your linked cards depending on your preference. Or you can use your Curve wallet with Google Pay, Apple Pay or a similar service, so you don’t need to carry a card at all.

Curve has a few unusual features, including their trademarked Go Back In Time® service you can use to change a payment card after a purchase is completed. This means, for example, that if you paid accidentally with one card which didn’t earn cashback and you later want to switch to the cashback card, you can (subject to limits based on the Curve account tier you have).

Overall, Curve is an innovative digital wallet that lets you conveniently spend with a selection of linked cards, with some opportunities to save money depending on the account type you have and how you need to transact.

What is Wise?

Wise is a digital account and card service which has a focus on powerful international features, including the option to hold and exchange 40+ currencies with the mid-market exchange rate every time. You can open a Wise personal or business account online or in the Wise app, and order a Wise debit card for easy spending at home and abroad. You’ll also be able to send payments to 160+ countries, and receive payments to your Wise account in 9 currencies.

What makes Wise stand out is that all currency conversion uses the mid-market exchange rate with low fees from 0.43%. All costs and charges are split out for transparency, and there are no ongoing fees - you just pay for the transactions you need to make.

In summary, Wise is a smart and easy to use digital account with linked payment card which you can use to hold, send, spend and exchange dozens of currencies, with low fees and no ongoing costs to worry about.

Please see Terms of Use for your region or visit Wise Fees & Pricing for the most up to date pricing and fee information

Curve vs Wise benefits

Curve vs Wise have quite a few common features - but the focus of each provider is a bit different, which likely means that one will suit your needs more than the other. Or - you may even decide both could be handy for different reasons and at different times!

Neither Curve nor Wise are banks. That is, they don’t hold a UK banking licence - but they’re both safe to use as they’re regulated for the services they offer through the FCA just as most financial service providers and banks are. They run automatic and manual customer protection measures in the background 24/7, and implement their own industry level anti-fraud measures, too.

Here are a few of the things Curve and Wise have in common:

• Both Curve and Wise offer digital wallets with linked payment cards
• Both Curve and Wise have account options which have no monthly fees
• Both Curve and Wise offer some innovative ways to save money when spending abroad
• Both Curve and Wise serve UK based personal customers

However, there are also a good number of places where the services from each provider are quite different. That means both Curve and Wise have their own unique features and benefits, too.

Here are a few of the benefits you get with Curve:

• Choose the Curve account tier that suits your needs and usage, including some with monthly fees
• Link multiple payment cards, and transact with your Curve card online, in person and using mobile payments
• Go Back in Time and reassign a payment to a different linked card if you need to
• Get some fee free cash withdrawal and some fee free foreign currency spending depending on the account tier you select

Here are a few of the benefits you get with Wise:

• Hold and exchange 40+ currencies in your Wise account, get paid in 9 currencies conveniently
• Spend with your Wise card in 150+ countries, and send payments to 160+ countries
• All currency conversion uses the mid-market exchange rate with low, transparent fees from 0.43%
• Some fee free cash withdrawal every month - no ongoing fees for any account

Curve vs Wise fees and charges

It’s pretty hard to say whether Curve vs Wise is cheapest, as both have a good selection of services and options, with different costs depending on how you choose to use your account.

Whether Curve vs Wise is best for you will depend entirely on what you need from an account. We’ll walk through some of the key costs for both providers here - but it’s important to remember that the services offered are quite different from each provider, so you’ll need to run through the whole fee schedule for whichever one you pick in the end.

	Curve²	Wise⁴
Open account	No fee	No fee for personal customers; low, one time charge for business customers
Monthly fee	Curve: No fee Curve X: 4.99 GBP/month Curve Black: 10.99 GBP/month Curve Metal: 14.99 GBP/month	No fee
ATM fees	Some fee free withdrawals every month based on account tier, fees of 2% (or 2 GBP, depending on which is greater) apply after that³	2 withdrawals, up to 200 GBP/month fee free, 0.5 GBP + 1.75% after that
Foreign transaction fees	Some fee free currency conversion every month based on account tier, fees of 2% apply after that Weekend and out of hours costs may also apply	Free to spend any currency you hold in your account Currency conversion from 0.43% where required

*Fee information correct at time of research - 26th July 2023

*Wise will not charge you for these withdrawals, but some additional charges may occur from independent ATM networks.

As we’ve seen, both Curve and Wise have account and card options which have no monthly fees - although with Curve you’ll need to pay a monthly charge of up to 14.99 GBP/month to access all the available features.

Wise has a focus on international spending and ways to hold and exchange a broad range of currencies. That’s quite different to Curve which does have ways to cut the costs of spending money internationally, but which has more of a niche set around ways to manage multiple card payments conveniently and with some great perks.

Curve vs Wise - international transfers

Curve doesn’t offer international transfers as part of its digital wallet service. If you’ll be sending payments abroad and in foreign currencies, you’ll need a third party solution like Wise.

Wise international transfers can be sent using a balance you hold in your Wise account already - or you can choose to pay by bank transfer or with a credit or debit card. You’ll be able to send money to 160+ countries, with the mid-market exchange rate and low, transparent fees from 0.43%.

Wise isn’t a bank - and it works differently to banks when it comes to international transfers, too. While banks usually use the SWIFT network to process payments headed overseas, Wise built its own network to cut costs and make the process more efficient.

Sending a transfer with SWIFT can mean unexpected fees as intermediary banks are often involved in the payment - this can also slow things down so your bank transfer takes 3 to 5 days in the end. Wise uses its own network of bank accounts around the world, which cuts out the middleman and allows these savings to be passed back to the customer in the form of lower fees and a better exchange rate. Wise transfers are also usually quick - 50% arrive instantly and 90% are there in 24 hours⁵.

We’ll look in detail at how to send a payment overseas with Wise in just a few steps, later.

Curve vs Wise - app and ease of use

Curve and Wise both offer services online and through apps, rather than having a physical network of branches as a bank usually would. Generally this tends to mean that the apps are intuitive and easy to use, as they’re digital first businesses rather than legacy businesses which have built an app to modernise.

Both Curve and Wise have similar app review scores in the Apple App Store, although Wise has more reviews registered. Wise also has a good rating on Google Play - but Curve customers seem to have more issues with the app on Android compared to iOS, leading to a much poorer rating overall. Here’s a breakdown:

	App store	Google Play
Curve	4.6 out of 5 stars, from 15k+ reviews⁶	2.9 out of 5 stars, from 50k+ reviews⁷
Wise	4.6 out of 5 stars, from 29k+ reviews⁸	4.7 out of 5 stars, from 478k+ reviews⁹

Both Curve and Wise apps are safe to use, and are regularly updated to ensure customer funds, data, and their accounts are secured.

How to easily transfer money with Wise

We mentioned that sending money overseas isn’t a feature offered by Curve. Instead, you can check out Wise for easy, fast and cheap ways to send payments locally and overseas.

You’ll need to register a Wise account to send a payment - which can be done easily in the Wise app. Once your account has been verified for security reasons, you’ll be able to send money to 160+ countries, in 40+ currencies - quickly or even instantly in many cases. Wise accounts also have other handy features like your linked Wise card and convenient ways to get paid in 9 different currencies, right into your Wise digital account.

Here’s a step by step guide to sending money with Wise:

1. Download the Wise app for free
2. Register an account by entering your personal and contact information
3. Get verified by uploading a photo of your ID documents
4. Model the payment you want to make to get a fee and rate quote
5. Choose how you want to pay (bank transfer or card for example)
6. Check everything over and confirm - you’ll be prompted to pay using your chosen payment method

Open a Wise Account Today 🚀

“Wise may request additional documents to verify a customer's identity".

When it comes to Curve vs Wise, neither provider is better - they’re just both different services which target different customer needs.

Curve can be great if you want convenient ways to manage your card spending across multiple cards, with extra perks like some fee free ATM withdrawals and currency conversion when you spend overseas. However, you can’t use Curve to hold funds, and there’s no way to manage your funds across different currencies either.

If you need a service with more of an international focus, Wise may be a better fit, with ways to hold 40+ currencies, get paid in 9 currencies, send money to 160+ countries, and spend with your Wise card in 150+ countries. Wise accounts have no ongoing fees, and every time you need to send or spend money in a currency you don’t have in your account, you’ll be able to access the mid-market exchange rate with low, transparent fees from as little as 0.43%.⁴

Use this guide to compare Curve vs Wise based on the types of transactions you need to make - and see which might suit your needs best.

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Sources:

1. Curve
2. Curve account tiers
3. Curve subscription fees
4. Pricing/fees: Please see Terms of Use for your region or visit Wise Fees & Pricing for the most up to date pricing and fee information
5. Speed: The speed of transaction claim depends on funds availability, approval by Wise's proprietary verification system and systems availability of our partners' banking system, and may not be available for all transactions
6. Curve App Store
7. Curve Google Play
8. Wise App Store
9. Wise Google Play

Sources last checked on: 26th July 2023