Wise Business vs Revolut Business for UK businesses

Wise Business

B-

Wise Business is the business version of the Wise multi-currency account, run by Wise, the London company that launched as TransferWise in 2011. A US business pays a one-time $31 fee to open local account details in 22 currencies, and there is no monthly fee. As of October 2026, US pricing makes domestic (non-wire) receipts in USD and eight other currencies free and charges $6.11 for each incoming USD wire or Swift payment. Conversion fees start at 0.23% and depend on the currency, always at the mid-market rate, and same-currency payments between Wise accounts are free. Clients can pay you through payment links, invoices and QR codes. Wise also has a card acceptance feature, priced for US businesses at 2.9% + $0.30 for domestic consumer cards and 4.2% + $0.30 for international and business cards, but Wise says it is currently unavailable to new Wise Business customers. Wise is not a bank: in the US the account is provided by Wise US Inc., a licensed money transmitter, and balances are not FDIC-insured unless you opt in to its interest feature. Its US regulatory record is the main weakness. Wise US settled with the CFPB in 2025 and paid $4.2 million to six state regulators over anti-money-laundering failings, the OCC refused its trust bank charter in July 2026, and a securities class action against Wise Group is pending.

Revolut Business

B

Revolut Business is the merchant-acceptance arm of Revolut, the London fintech founded in 2015 by Nik Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko. It is unusual in this directory for a simple reason: it publishes a complete rate card. A merchant can read, before speaking to anyone, that in-person domestic consumer Visa and Mastercard transactions cost 0.8% + £0.02, that the same cards online cost 1% + £0.20, that commercial and international cards cost 2.6% + £0.02 in person and 2.8% + £0.20 online, that a Revolut Terminal is £169 + VAT and a Lite Terminal £129 + VAT, and that a chargeback dispute resolved in the merchant's favour returns £15. Acceptance is a sub-account of a Revolut Business account rather than a separate merchant account with a separate provider, so settlement lands in the same balance the business already banks from, in as little as 24 hours. The important limit is geographic: Revolut has offered acquiring across the UK and continental Europe since 2020–21 — its own January 2021 announcement put the count at 29 European countries, a figure it has not refreshed since — and launched a full merchant-acquiring suite in Australia during 2026. It publishes no United States card-acceptance rates. In March 2026 Revolut exited the Bank of England's mobilisation phase and received a full UK banking licence, roughly twenty months after being granted one with restrictions in July 2024.