Wise, Bluevine collaborate on cross-border payments for US SMBs

Wise and SMB neobank Bluevine have teamed up to improve the cross-border payments experience for US small businesses.

Bluevine’s product portfolio ranges from business checking accounts, and bill pay, to lines of credit between $6,000 and $250,000 – suited to business owners who need fast access to working capital.

But when it comes to international payments, one-third of SMBs are frustrated by restrictions in destination countries that limit their ability to send cross-border payments, a Mastercard report shows. One-quarter of small businesses faced rejection from their suppliers due to uncertainty over payment times.

To straighten out the challenges of international payments for SMBs, the new partnership enables Bluevine customers to access eight currencies across 26 countries without unforeseen costs. Users can choose to make a payment through Wise integrated directly into their bill pay and checking accounts, accessible from their Bluevine account dashboard. The company plans to add more currency options and a list of countries to expand its reach moving ahead. 

I spoke with Brian Linthicum, head of Wise Platform, North America, and Herman Man, CPO at Bluevine about how the integration came into being and how it will streamline international payments for SMBs.

How the Wise Platform and Bluevine built this integration? 

Brian Linthicum, Wise: We’ve built an embedded bill pay solution that lets customers make international payments with no hidden fees directly from the Bluevine interface. Over the last 10+ years, Wise has built an entirely new international payments network. As a tech-forward company, Wise Platform was created to allow other banks and large companies to leverage Wise’s API around the world to bring our infrastructure closer to end-users. 

Our product, compliance, and engineering teams worked together with Bluevine teams over the last three months to ensure a seamless integration that aligns with the same experience Bluevine’s customers have come to expect. With our initial bill pay solution now available to Bluevine’s full customer base, we’re continuing to work closely together to expand our existing offering to ensure small businesses’ needs are met and that they have the best international payments experience possible.

How will the Wise integration add value for Bluevine customers? 

Brian Linthicum, Wise: Our integration is embedded directly into Bluevine’s digital banking dashboard. We’ve enabled international payments for customers in a few simple clicks.

Bluevine is a leader in a new banking experience that is specifically tailored to small and medium-sized businesses, while Wise’s expertise is in international payments. As small businesses historically have been forced to use consumer offerings that do not cater to their unique needs, this integration is building on the existing Bluevine platform to solve the growing needs of its customers. By partnering with Wise, Bluevine is able to continue its focus on creating the best offerings for domestic customers and leverage our experience for international payments. 

Walk us through the stepwise procedure of sending money internationally from the Bluevine account using Wise

Herman Man, Bluevine: We've seamlessly integrated our international payments experience into our Bluevine payments flow. Therefore, whether a customer decides to pay a domestic or an international payee, it's a familiar and similar experience. With the Wise integration, customers can now easily choose to create an international payee by selecting the country the payee resides in. Like our typeahead for address completion for domestic payees, we've created the same experience for international payees. This ensures adding payees to their system continues to be as simple. 

Customers can then make an international payment whether through global USD or local currency to this payee and we transparently confirm with the customer prior to sending the payment what their payee receives, the exchange rate used (if applicable), processing fees incurred, and when the funds arrive in the payee's account.