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How does Instarem compare to Wise?
Instarem and Wise are ranked among the top cross-border money transfer providers in the industry. Both offer exchange rates with zero margins, meaning your transfer is processed at the mid-market rate. In this review, we're considering factors such as transfer speeds, fees, sending and disbursing network coverages, transfer and pay-out options and user sentiment for each brand.
Instarem is a fintech company headquartered in Singapore and offers businesses and individuals across 150 transfer corridors low-priced money transfer solutions. With slightly over 5 years experience in the business, the company has grown to a staff of around 100 people. Through its InstaReM MassPay solution, the company now manages bulk payments in different currencies to multiple beneficiaries.
Despite the wide disbursing network coverage, Instarem only allows sending in a few currencies; these include AUD, CAD, EUR, HKD, GBP, INR, MYR, SGD, and USD. This limits the number of customers who can comfortably send money to their families. Africa, in particular, has been excluded from the sending countries, with a focus on Europe and Asian markets instead.
Based in London, Wise serves over 4 million customers and supports 750+ currency routes. On average, the company facilitates transfers of approximately $4 billion per month. With a team of 1900+ professionals, the provider ensures that its customers are attended to through mail, online chat and phone.
While the company is known for its mid-market exchange rate policy, it also charges low transfer fees and has begun rolling out mobile wallet pay-out solutions in some of the markets. This is a huge improvement and a relief to its customers, many of whom were restricted to using bank transfers as the only pay-out solution.
Which brand has lower fees?
Wise's fees depend on the amount you are sending and how you pay. Most transfers will include a 0.35% variable fee plus a fixed fee which is include in the quote for your transfer.
The company will charge you $2.07 to send $100 to India and $1.98 to send to Hong Kong.
✅ Verdict: Instarem has lower fees
When compared Instarem vs Wise, Instarem has much lower charges for the same transfer payment methods. If you're looking for the lowest fees, use our simple guide to find the cheapest way to send money abroad.
Which brand offers better exchange rates?
Wise process their rates at the mid-market rate, which is the exchange rate you would see if you were to look it up on Google. It offers guaranteed rates for up to 48 hours.
✅ Verdict: It's a tie
This is a tie because neither provider charges an exchange rate mark-up on currency pairs. Learn more about finding the best exchange rates in our simple guide.
Which brand covers more locations?
Wise allows you to open an online money transfer account from 200+ countries and territories. However, its disbursing network covers only 59 countries and 50 currencies, as listed on its website.
✅ Verdict: Wise has more options
In Instarem vs Wise, Wise has a stronger sending and disbursing network.
Which is faster?
Wise is not very clear on its website on how long it takes but estimates from its transfer widget show that some transfers are delivered instantly while others take a couple of hours and some take up to 4 days. For instance, if you transfer $1000 to Bangladesh, it takes 4 days. If you pay using a card, it is much faster.
✅ Verdict: It's a tie
With most transfers delivered the same day or within 1 business day for both Instarem and Wise, it is fair to say that it is a tie. If you're looking for the fastest provider, use our simple guide to find the fastest way to send money internationally.
Which brand offers more transfer & payment options?
Wise allows customers to pay for their transfers using bank transfer, debit card and credit card. For the receiving options, where there was once only the option to transfer-to-bank accounts, there is now the option to transfer to digital wallets in Bangladesh(bKash), Ghana (MTN Mobile Money), Indonesia (DANA, GoPay, and OVO) and the Philippines (PayMaya).
✅ Verdict: Wise wins
Between Instarem vs Wise, Wise has more transfer payment and pay-out options, which may be crucial factor in many people's decision making.
What do users have to say about each brand?
Wise has a total of 79,830 reviews on Trustpilot; 68,000+ of these award 5 stars. Below are some of the positive points frequently mentioned:
Faster transfers
Ease to navigate platform
Affordable for both small and large transfers
Highly secure platform with security measures at the critical stages
Excellent rates
The areas of concern cited by dissatisfied customers included:
Transfer delays on some routes
Bad customer experience relating to the mobile app queries
Higher fees on some routes
✅ Verdict: Wise wins
In Wise vs Instarem comparison, Wise is the winner here with more positive reviews overall.
What brand offers better ease of use, accessibility & security?
Wise has a vibrant customer support function available on phone, chat and email. In addition, its website supports a total of 12 languages which are English, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Romanian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Italian, Hungarian, French, and Turkish.
Using the Wise app, that is available on both the iOS and Android platforms, you can send money, pay for your transfers, track your transfers, view historical transfers and do so much more. The company is licensed and regulated in the following markets Belgium and the European Economic Area (EEA), Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area (EEA), and the United States.
The company uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) for data security, has a two-step authentication system, and is ISO/IEC 27001 compliant for information security.
✅ Verdict: Wise is more accessible
Wise is more accessible due to the website translation capabilities, is licensed in more countries than Instarem and implements lots of security layers.
Additional Features
Wise has several solutions for businesses, these include:
Borderless Account– This is a free business account allowing you to send and receive payment in multiple currencies
Batch Payments– You can make batch payments to employees, suppliers, or vendors. It can send up to 1,000 payments with a single click
Xero Integration– You can easily sync your business activity with Xero on the Wise platform. This helps in business accounting
Open API Payment Automation– You can automate recurring orders and simplify expense reporting as well as placing standing orders through this solution.
Mastercard Branded Debit Card– This card gives you the convenience of shopping online and offline and also withdraw money directly from an ATM
✅ Verdict: Wise wins
Wise has lots of solutions both for personal and business compared to Instarem .
Case Studies
The following scenarios give you a look and feel of how typical transfers play out when Instarem vs Wise compared head to head in the US - Singapore corridor.
Sending $200
If you were to send $200 to Singapore with Wise via bank debit, you would incur a fee of 2.67 USD, with the recipient receiving a total of 267.52 SGD within 1 - 3 working days.
For credit card payments, the fee increases to 9.51USD, while the debit card fee would be 4.35 USD.
Sending $1,000
Paying by bank transfer to send $1,000 to Australia would have a fee of 8.63 USD with Wise, whilst a credit card payment increases the fee to $42.83. The recipient would get a total of 1,379.06 SGD.
Sending $20,000
By bank debit, sending this sum would incur a fee of 150.33, with this increasing all the way up to 834.38 USD if you were paying by credit card. This transfer could take up to 5 working days.
✅ Verdict: Wise has better rates
From this InstaRem vs Wise case study, we can see that the recipient receives more of your funds through Wise than with Instarem, with the differences only increasing the larger the sum you send. It's worth bearing in mind that this can change depending on the currency pair you are converting between, however.
Bottom Line - who is better?
Domestic Payments– Wise supports domestic payments in both EUR and USD. Instarem only supports international payments
Business Payments– While both Wise and Instarem have business payment solutions, Wise is more invested
Smaller Transactions- Wise is much more suited for smaller payments. It allows for payments as low as $1 while Instarem begins at $50
Large Transactions- Wise is best for large transactions of up to USD 1 million, GBP 1 million and EUR 1.2 million in addition to other currencies. Instarem limits vary depending on the market
Disbursing Network Coverage– Wise serves 59 countries compared to Instarem which supports 29 supported countries
