TransferWise suspends international remittance service from Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – TransferWise, a global company that transfers money between countries, has temporarily suspended its money remittance service from Brazil to other countries, according to a statement released on Thursday, February 18th. The reason for this was the suspension of an agreement it had with MSBank, a specialized foreign exchange bank.

“TransferWise confirms that the transfer route from Brazil is temporarily unavailable due to a number of operational adjustments, which include the end of the partnership with MSBank,” the company said in a statement.

MSBank, in turn, explained that it has suspended its partnership with TransferWise because it has developed its own service.

“MS Bank announces that it has discontinued its activities with the correspondent TransferWise on February 18th, 2021. This is due to the pre-launch of the bank’s own platform: CloudBreak (…) Clients will be able to transfer money abroad with no intermediaries,” the exchange bank said in a message on its website.

TransferWise is a technology company specializing in foreign exchange transfers, co-founded in 2011 by Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Käärmann, both Estonian. It has already raised over US$1 billion in investment rounds, with contributions from entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, and Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal.

“TransferWise assures that it will maintain its operations in the country and that its clients’ transactions are safe, and advises that transfers to Brazil continue in full operation,” the company said.

“The company will notify clients in due course once the service is again available for transfers from the country,” TransferWise added.

Source: Exame