From safe blue to citrus green: How Wise rebranded to an identity that is exciting and good for its bottom line

In 2023, Wise launched a rebrand that has the potential to make it into design school curricula. With its citrusy green, bold typography, and painterly approach to 3D visuals, the Wise brand today is unforgettable without being overwhelming.

In today’s story, we do a deep dive into the impetus behind this rebrand, its scope, how it was executed, and the results the brand has seen since the unveiling of the splashy new look last year.

Problem statement: Reflecting growth and maintaining recognition

The shedding of the word “Transfer” in Wise’s name came before the new look. The company was slowly building towards its new identity driven by its growth in terms of geographies it served, as well as the products it offered. Wise was no longer just about sending money – it had products that enabled customers to hold and spend money and it touched more people now than ever before.

The challenge, however, was making sure that the firm does not lose the trust customers had with the company and its brand recognition as it went through its metamorphosis, according to the firm’s CMO Cian Weeresinghe. 

To ensure customers moved with the firm, the team at Wise decided to march as one. “This [maintaining brand recognition] was no easy feat, and required intense coordination and collaboration across multiple teams and channels including paid marketing, PR, CRM, brand systems, product discovery, organic social, and customer service,” said Ciam. 

The Wise rebrand has been so successful because every part of the business feels like a vignette out of the same story. 

The remit: A redesign with expanse and depth

Wise feels different since its rebrand. It feels alive and exciting. Chasing ephemeral feelings is difficult but if there is anything that can make you feel closer to a brand and view it with renewed excitement, it’s design. 

And Wise’s new look was all encompassing. It’s hard to remember what Wise looked like before because the pieces today fit so well together. The same cannot be said for rebrands like that of Twitter, where the X and flat blacks only evoke nostalgia for better days. 

Source: Wise

Here is what Wise changed in the rebrand and how the firm thought about each piece:

a) Color Palette: The most noticeable change for Wise was perhaps the shift in its primary colors. The firm went from a safe blue to an energetic and electric green. “Wise doesn’t think of itself as a bank. It doesn’t act like a bank. The new green color represented a chance to make that stand again against what is a sea of sameness when it comes to other financial services brands,” said the firm’s VP of Brand Strategy, Iona Carter.

Carter also shared that the green helped with evocation by representing money and progress. Another important consideration for the wider color palette was accessibility. Testing and consumer feedback played an important role here in ensuring that the new look met both WCAG guidelines as well as APAC color standards.

b) Visual Elements: Some of the best global brand identities and designs, like Apple, use 3D elements. Wise was one of the first brands to really own the 3D direction and is still one of the few brands in the financial services industry, particularly, to do so. 

The Wise homepage today is dominated by a green-blue 3D globe that is orbited by currencies from various countries. The connection to Wise’s global nature and financial focus is clear from the outset. It was this globe that inspired the adoption of the 3D assets into other areas of the Wise website, says Carter. 

The impetus for going in the 3D direction was the same as that for choosing green: Wise wanted to be distinctive and it wasn’t afraid to lean in. “2D illustrations are pretty rote at this point within brand identity systems,” said Carter.

3D design elements are more powerful than some may think. The gaming industry entered a new era when video games stopped being 2D and built immersive worlds by playing with light, environment, and movement. 3D visual elements give a sense of depth and realism, driving deeper engagement and connection.

For 3D illustrations texture is an important consideration, and Wise made what the firm calls “graphic tapestries” inspired by bank notes and visual elements from historical places, to come up with a painterly effect that gives these elements a rich, plush, and smooth feel.

“There’s enough thinking and theory now, at least in academic circles, around the importance of really distinctive assets for a brand,” said Carter. 

c) Photography: Photographs help with feeling familiarity and grounding the design in the real world. For the rebrand, Wise wanted the photograph to emulate the dynamism that its other assets had.

“It’s challenging as a brand with a global reach to feel local, but also communicate globally. We felt photography was one element that we could really lean into that would enable us to do that,” said Carter.

The new photography came after careful art direction, and engenders a sense of movement, candid moments that represent real people, real emotions, and real moments from people’s lives.

The process: Keeping an eye on the ball and finding the right design partners

The Wise rebrand is successful not just because of what the firm accomplished, but also because of how it was done. From internal championing of the rebrand, deployment, to finding the right design company to work with, the processes of this rebrand are integral to the firm’s success with the project.

a) Deployment: Given that the digital touchpoints were now going to contain graphic-heavy assets, the team thought about how these designs will be implemented and deployed in customers’ experiences from day one, according to Carter.  

“We were thinking about how what we built was going to be compatible with the Wise app, how it would work across desktop environments as well as how we could build a system that was ultimately simple but very scalable. We have a whole team now that just owns this remit called, ‘Brand Systems’,” said Carter. 

She also shared that the firm has invested more heavily in building this team since the rebrand, with Brand Systems having grown considerably since the rebrand first rolled out. 

b) Internal champions: With a wide ranging rebrand like this that impacts both high level things like color palette but also microinteractions, it’s important to keep reminding teams why they are doing what they are doing to act as a homing signal.

“Its an often overlooked job for any team that is spearheading a rebrand internally. [You need a] continual drum beat, that reminds people why we are doing this and contextualizing it,” Carter added. 

c) Find the right partner: For the rebrand, Wise worked with Ragged Edge, a branding agency based in London, which has also worked with brands like Papier and Monzo. “We worked extremely closely with the Ragged Edge team, at every stage of the process, from ideation all the way through to how is this going to roll out in the product,” Carter shared. 

Once the rebrand was done, Wise decided to continue its relationship with Ragged Edge, deciding that brand management, evolution, and design is a continuous process: 

“The team intentionally opted to keep them in a retainer capacity. Because, the work of a rebrand, and in some ways, is never done. We’ve continued to work with them, albeit on a lower drum beat.”

The results are in

Not all rebrands reinvigorate excitement about the firm. Twitter’s rebrand to X actually led to its downloads dropping, as well as a 4% drop in active users. This is despite the fact that the firm was now attached to the most famous tech personality in the world, Elon Musk. 

For Wise, however, the numbers tell a positive story. For the financial year of 2024, 48% of personal customers and 60% of business customers are using more than one Wise product in comparison to 36% and 55% respectively in 2023, according to the firm’s CMO Weeresinghe.

The firm’s overall growth also reflects the success of the rebrand, with the firm experiencing a 34% YOY growth in the first year (2022-2023) after the new identity’s launch and another 29% growth to 12.8 million active customers by the end of the financial year 2024.

The above graphic is created by Tearsheet using assets from the Wise website.

Sidebar: Branding makes perfect

Branding can be a powerful tool for communicating a firm’s core message, values, ethos, and personality to customers. And the more creatively a firm things about using assets and channels, the better. 

Last year we looked at how Klarna uses a unique tone, imagery, and marketing campaigns to reach and engage its audience and stand out in the payments and shopping space. 
 
Some time back the brand ran an interactive ad campaign called the “K-rated”. The ads had scannable pixelated images which curious customers would have to scan to get information of the product and access to deals. The whole campaign took inspiration from sex and porn and turned it into an interactive shopping experience. Klarna worked with the creative agency Thinkerbell on the campaign and Thinkerbell founder, Adam Ferrier told me that the idea was developed collaboratively by the two companies.

“Creating scarcity, or making something seem like it’s not easily available has the impact of people wanting to see it more. We used this psychological tool to make everyday objects seem ‘k-rated’, and could only be viewed via scanning the item via a QR code,” Ferrier said.  

Another modality for brand and design heads to consider is sound.  Think of sonic branding as a brand’s auditory handshake – it’s what ties the object (brand) to its attributes (convenient, trustworthy, etc.) in consumers’ minds.

“Sonic branding can be leveraged to build recall and association between brands and their campaigns and special products/services. Specifically in the financial services sector, sound branding can provide levels of assurance to the consumer surrounding the exchange of money or services,” said Austin Coates, Research & Insights Consultant at amp, a sonic branding agency.

The Quarterly Review: How Zelle’s GM Denise Leonhard plans on leading the firm to $1 trillion a year and beyond


Notes from the desk: Welcome to this month’s Quarterly Review, a series where I dive into what executives from some of the best brands in financial services are focusing on in this quarter, as well as how they are planning to achieve their goals. It’s a chance for the industry to learn about what goes on behind an FI’s four walls and how leadership manages their priorities. 

But that’s not all: a review implies no mandates, a check in. So stay tuned next quarter to learn whether the executive achieves her plans and translates theory into reality.


In this edition, we focus on Denise Leonhard, GM of Zelle.

Half a trillion dollars were transferred over the Zelle network in the first half of 2024, according to Zelle’s report in October. This came with a 27% increase in transaction volume YOY for the firm, showing how quickly the Zelle network is expanding. 

At the start of 2025, Denise Leonhard, Zelle’s GM, joins the The Quarterly Review roster to report that the firm is doubling down on this growth and plans to surpass that golden $1 trillion mark very soon. Her strategy spearheading this effort to go beyond the growth benchmark is a mix of focusing on fundamentals like consumer experience and security, as well as a strategic move to let the growing adoption numbers “do the talking” and attract more banks into joining the network. 

The focus: Growing the network while providing an optimized payments experience to meet the financial needs of Americans

Leonhard: Our goal is to continue that trajectory and surpass $1 trillion in transaction volume by the next edition of The Quarterly Review. We aim to be the largest and most secure platform for Americans to send money to people they know and love, and small businesses they trust.  

1. Expanding the number of banks on the Zelle network: One specific angle of growth we are prioritizing in 2025 is increasing the number of banks on the Zelle network. We connect more than 2,200 banks and credit unions, and we are engaging with financial institutions every day to grow that number. Americans rely on Zelle, and any person with a bank account should be able to have access to safe and fast peer-to-peer (P2P) payments through their bank.  

We’re proud that we have banks of all sizes on our network. In fact, 95% of the financial institutions on our network are community banks and credit unions, including nearly 50% of Minority Depository Institution (MDI) banks. Without Zelle, these smaller institutions may not be able to offer P2P payments and would struggle to compete in the marketplace. Their customers, who depend on those local banking relationships, are already underserved by the broader financial system and would be left further behind by the shift towards digital payments. 

2. Meeting financial needs: A recent Bank of America Institute study found that 26% of all American households are living paycheck to paycheck. With Zelle, money is directly received in the bank accounts of consumers who are least able to wait for transfers to process, making it easier for them to pay or get paid, and to access their money almost immediately. That immediacy of funds is critical for millions of people across the country

This is also true of the small businesses who use Zelle to pay people or receive payments for services performed. Payment via Zelle powers local economies by providing businesses that rely on our service with access to instant liquidity that not only puts food on the table for their families, but enables them to pay for their expenses, and be better prepared to grow and thrive.  

Plan of action

For the millions of consumers who rely on our service, the best thing that Zelle can be is available.

1. Ensuring we are up and running: Reliability is the most important promise to deliver on for a technology like ours. Our users expect to be up and running whenever someone needs to pay a landscaper or cover their share of dinner. That means every step we take to expand requires even more investment in our foundations. Our engineers work nonstop to ensure that we have a strong and resilient platform.

We need to deliver a strong and reliable network that can continue to grow and innovate.

2. Leverage network effects: To achieve growth, we need to continue to optimize the experience for our users. The more that people are using Zelle to pay the people they know and trust, the more their relationship with their bank is reinforced, and other banks and credit unions want to join the network and offer the same great service to their consumers.

The question becomes: How do we improve the user experience? The answer: By meeting consumers where they are.

3. Prioritizing consumers’ user experience: Our design teams do extensive research, asking Zelle users about how they use the product, what is working, and what could be better. Then, they work closely with our product teams and bank partners to act on those insights. We are constantly thinking about new ways to deploy Zelle overall or help small businesses save time by using Zelle instead of cash or checks.

4. Centering safety of consumer funds: Finally, if you want to provide the best P2P payments experience you need to work to be the safest. Last year, the FTC received 2.6 million fraud reports with only 5% of those scams occurring through P2P networks. The constant threat to consumers is a serious issue, as we all face an unrelenting stream of fraudulent texts, calls, social media posts, and more- all from criminals trying to swindle them out of money.

Fighting fraud and scams is not a new initiative for Zelle. It is part of our DNA and something that we do every day. We are working on new technologies to help participating financial institutions identify potentially suspicious payments and to help consumers remain vigilant to the threat of bad actors.

In 2023, we processed 99.95% of transactions without a report of scam or fraud, but we know the work to stay ahead of criminals is never done. There have been criminals for as long as there has been currency, and unfortunately, that will likely continue.

Since the network’s inception in 2017, Zelle has maintained a steady and positive trajectory. We will continue that momentum in the year ahead by strengthening our foundation, refining our service, and providing even more consumers with a safe, reliable, and easy way to pay people they know and trust.


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How FIs can partner with parents to build better financial literacy programs

Social media fueled misinformation and evolving consumer expectations are driving financial brands to focus on financial literacy of younger consumers.

When financial firms decide to build an impactful financial literacy strategy, its better for everyone involved. But doing this isn’t as easy as it looks. For consumer education to be effective, FIs need to identify how to engage younger audiences and what areas to focus on the most.

So far, many different financial literacy strategies have been employed: podcasts, coloring books, games, college campus-focused campaigns, and social media-based influencer marketing.

Bringing parents into the picture

How to engage: However, one resource that financial brands may need to leverage more are parents. An American parent offers an average of 114 unique pieces of financial advice to their children in a year, according to data.

What needs to be addressed and why: And while parents are fairly confident in guiding their children about matters like budgeting, savings, credit cards, and debt, only 4% of parents feel equipped to guide their children about international finance like moving money across borders, according to the research.

Parents’ lack of confidence in their ability to teach children about international finance may impact how younger consumers access global opportunities in the future and their ease with functioning or operating businesses that surpass geographies. “This disconnect is particularly significant because we see younger generations growing up in an inherently more global world. Whether studying abroad, working remotely for international companies, or maintaining relationships across borders, their financial needs will likely be more globally oriented than their parents,” said Ankita D’Mello, Principal Product Manager (North America), at Wise.

Why international finance is hard to explain

International finance may be tricky for parents to get into because it requires a significant amount of scaffolding in a child’s understanding of the financial world. For example, when explaining an international money transfer between bank accounts, parents have to now explain multiple related concepts, says D’Mello, including:

  • Exchange rate margins and why the amount received might differ from what was sent
  • Why processing times can vary between countries
  • How different countries have different banking systems and requirements
  • The role of intermediate banks and why they matter

It’s these concepts that financial brands need to target when thinking of how to empower parents to teach their children about international finance more effectively.

How to empower parents

Financial brands can play two distinct roles here: one as the accessible tool and the other as the facilitator. These are some strategies FIs could adopt to help parents be more confident in their abilities to educate their children about finances:

1. Be a part of the solution: For example, one way Wise makes cross border transactions easier is by describing their fee structure upfront. This helps parents if they choose to demonstrate how a transaction works in practice and also helps alleviate parents’ personal anxieties about the process and any associated confusion.

But the firm is also increasingly focusing on the educational aspect of its tools and digital presence by doubling down on providing related support in its app to make sure consumers can do their transactions and learn in the same place. “A particularly telling statistic from our research is that 48% of parents find it challenging to identify trustworthy financial information online. This insight has strengthened our commitment to transparency in financial services and accuracy in our blog’s communication and educational content for the general public. We use this channel as a way to break down complex topics into digestible information for our customers and general consumers,” said D’Mello.

2. Design for two: Another strategy that D’Mello recommends firms should consider is taking a “dual audience approach” when developing products and communication strategies. This insight comes from data which shows that 40% of parents are worried about how relevant their financial advice will be as their children mature and that 70% of parents are willing to improve their own knowledge by trying out new tools and resources.

Some specific strategies that could enhance this type of product development are:

  • Developing tools that facilitate in-app collaborative learning between parents and children.
  • Creating content that helps parents explain complex financial concepts.
  • Ensuring transparency in how products work, as this helps parents more accurately explain concepts.
  • Providing resources that grow with families as financial needs become more sophisticated.

3. Build parent’s confidence and encourage conversations: For FIs that don’t have an extensive financial literacy strategy for younger consumers, one relatively easy place to start is focusing on providing talking points on what parents need to address when it comes to difficult topics like international finance.

“Having a standalone web page that’s dedicated to helping parents talk to teens about money would be greatly appreciated by parents and caretakers. Having information categorized for specific age ranges would also be helpful,” said Annie Cole, financial coach, book author, and founder of Money Essentials for Women.

Moreover, financial brands can also leverage different types of content like podcasts to engage both parents and children about money-related topics. Although not focused on international finance, one great example of this is the Million Bazillion podcast, sponsored by Greenlight, which tackles kids’ financial queries in a story-telling format while also including discussion questions and tips for parents on a supplementary website.

The bond of trust between parent and child can be an important driver of financial literacy, but it’s underused by FIs who primarily focus on casting the parent in the supervisor’s role. This is a missed opportunity. Especially because financial firms already occupy a position of trust in communities, combining it with a parent’s role in the home can create a powerful complement. This will h

elp FIs create more informed consumers for the future, and also invest in themselves becoming a trusted household name and brand.

Sidebar: The power of the dad-esque influencer

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