EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorFintech & NeobanksHeadquarters: GB

Wise: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Wise offers international money transfers and multi-currency accounts for individuals and businesses. Its offering consists of Wise Account, Wise Business and Wise Platform, the last of which lets banks and other companies provide cross-border payment services. According to Wise, this covers sending money to well over a hundred countries, a payment card, holding balances in several currencies and making payments from business accounts. Wise is delivered as an app for iOS and Android, on the web and through APIs for developers.

Wise, formerly TransferWise, is headquartered in London. In the United Kingdom, Wise Payments Limited is authorised by the FCA as an electronic money institution. For the European Economic Area, Wise Europe SA in Belgium is a payment institution supervised by the National Bank of Belgium, with a licence that can be used across the EEA. The software is not open source. The sources consulted do not say where customer data is hosted. A European organisation should check which Wise entity it contracts with.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Wise pre-selected
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Sovereignty score
52 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-250
    Headquartered outside the EU (GB)
  • Data residency SOV-3100
    EU-only hosting
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-340
    Key management with a non-European vendor
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
    Closed source: switching requires data migration
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-630
    Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked July 2, 2026
HeadquartersGB (OTHER)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decisionYes — found adequate by the European CommissionVerified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingEUVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantYesVendor-stated
Hosting signalCLOUDFLARENET - Cloudflare, Inc., US (US)Technically measured
CategoryFintech & Neobanks
TypeProduct
Websitewise.com ↗

The hosting signal shows the network that serves the vendor's website, often a CDN, and not necessarily where the service or your data is hosted. How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Wise

The European alternatives to Wise come from our knowledge base of over 6,200 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

116 European Fintech & Neobanks vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

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Why digital sovereignty matters with Wise

Wise is headquartered in GB, outside the EU. Contracts and data therefore also fall under non-European law. The GDPR applies through contractual terms, but in a conflict with local legislation you have less certainty than with a European vendor.

Data is hosted exclusively in the EU, so Wise scores best on data residency.

Wise is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Wise together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Wise?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Wise include Finom, Holvi and Knab. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Wise?

Our list of EU alternatives to Wise is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

Is Wise GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Wise is headquartered in GB (OTHER) and hosts data in EU. The vendor states it is GDPR-compliant, but the data falls under non-EU jurisdiction. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on July 2, 2026.

Sources

This record was checked via the vendor's website and legal notice during the full audit of June and July 2026. Source links have been recorded per record since 20 September 2026.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in Fintech & Neobanks

Fintech & Neobanks: Digital banks, neobanks, money transfers and fintech services. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

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8 European alternatives to Wise — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score