Wise Debuts on Nasdaq After Shifting Main Listing From London

Wise began trading on Nasdaq on Monday after shifting its primary listing from London to New York, keeping a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market while betting that U.S. markets will give it deeper liquidity, wider ownership and a higher profile.

The move matters because Wise is not a fledgling start-up. Founded in 2011, the money transfer and multi-currency banking company said it handled $243 billion in cross-border volume in the year ended March 31, up 31% from the prior year. In the same update, Wise reported net revenue of about $2.5 billion, customer holdings of $39 billion, up 40%, and 11.3 million active customers, up 22%.

Wise’s shareholders approved the primary listing shift on July 30, 2025. The company has said the U.S. gives it the world’s deepest and most liquid capital markets, a larger pool of institutional investors and a broader shareholder base that may understand its business more easily. Trading on Nasdaq was set to begin at 9:30 a.m. ET, or 2:30 p.m. BST, a symbolic handoff from London to New York.

The listing also preserves Wise’s dual-class structure. Class B shareholders hold nine votes per share, compared with one vote for Class A shares, giving co-founder and chief executive Kristo Kaarmann key voting control. That structure had been due to wind down in London, but the Nasdaq move allows it to continue, extending a governance arrangement that has drawn scrutiny from some investors.

Wise has also applied for a U.S. national trust bank charter and has said it plans to seek a Federal Reserve master account, steps that would bring it closer to U.S. payment rails and deepen its operating footprint in America. The company’s application was received by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in 2025, according to public materials.

For London, Wise’s departure is another sign of strain in a market that has struggled to keep fast-growing companies at home. IPO fundraising in London fell to a 30-year low in the first half of 2025, with only a handful of listings raising relatively little capital. Against that backdrop, Wise looks less like an isolated choice and more like another data point in a larger shift: the most ambitious companies still see New York as the better place to be valued, traded and followed.