How We’re (All) Fixing

How cross-industry collaboration makes us all better

In our new miniseries ‘How We’re Fixing', we’re on a mission to shed some light on exactly what companies across the industry are doing to solve problems for their customers.

Hosted by Roisin Levine, Head of UK and European Partnerships at Wise Platform and 3x Rising Star in Women in Fintech, the miniseries contains 5 distinct episodes featuring conversations with leaders from across the banking and fintech space.

Guests interviewed throughout the series are:

• Sarah Holt, Head of Partnerships, Monese
• Jason Wilkinson-Brown, Head of Partnerships and Open Banking, TSB
• Paul Albert, VP of Global Sales, Payhawk
• Michael Green, GM Partnerships, Xero
• Emily Trant, Head of Impact & Inclusion, Wagestream

Why are we doing this? It’s simple. At Wise, we believe that cross-sector collaboration is the key to driving innovation and reaching more customers. Our partnership arm, Wise Platform, is live with over 50 banks and businesses in 13 countries, making Wise’s best-in-class international payments capabilities available to millions of customers worldwide. And we’re only just getting started.

But collaboration shouldn’t be reserved for integrations alone; good-faith conversations like the ones we see throughout How We’re Fixing are also an invaluable way of driving growth throughout the industry that will ultimately lead to an improved experience for customers.

Partnerships are becoming an increasingly familiar feature of the financial sector, and, as we were reminded by our guests, they are one of the most effective solutions for companies looking to solve problems for customers without entailing years of development costs and growing pains.

In the inaugural episode of How We’re Fixing, Roisin speaks to Sarah Holt, Head of Partnerships at Monese, about how Monese is fixing access to alternative bank accounts and banking services.

Sarah sheds light on how she and her team make decisions on where to build infrastructure internally, and where to seek out partnerships with other platforms - a balancing act that many in the industry are still grappling with. Sarah notes that “It’s important to focus on the things that you’re good at and the things that you really need to build, versus where there is already a great product in that space and there’s really no need to reinvent the wheel.”

This is something we see a lot at Wise Platform - finding the right opportunities for internal innovation versus partnerships is a huge factor in why banks and businesses choose to integrate with us. We have spent a decade building our products and striving to achieve our mission. We have more than 4,000 Wisers dedicated to it, and we move more money across borders than any other standalone money mover - totalling £8bn for our customers every month. And we’re still a long way from where we want to be.

Not only does Wise Platform save banks and large businesses from having to invest in building or upgrading their foreign exchange infrastructure, it also enables them to benefit from our scale and expertise. And, as our partner, they receive the highest level of support.

As Sarah says, deciding when to innovate and when to partner is key to creating effective solutions for the problems consumers face. Partnerships allow companies to distribute new products and services quickly and seamlessly from within their existing app, meaning customers can do more with their money and are less likely to look elsewhere for providers that better cater to their needs.

There’s loads more insight where that came from to soak up in every single episode, but we don’t want to give it all away... If you’re interested in hearing more about how some of the industry’s biggest players are responding to new challenges, collaborating with the sector, and leveraging new infrastructure to build products that will serve the customers of tomorrow, you can find the full suite of How We’re Fixing here. Happy viewing!

Discover How We’re Fixing!