OakNorth, the UK digital bank for entrepreneurs, has selected Wise Platform, Wise’s global payments infrastructure for banks and enterprises, to power international payments for its UK business customers.
Through the partnership, OakNorth customers, who are scaling businesses with annual turnover of £1 million to £100 million, will be able to make international payments at the mid market exchange rate in more than 20 currencies. These include euros, US dollars, pounds, Indian rupees, Hong Kong dollars and Chinese yuan. Wise says 77% of payments arrive in under 20 seconds. The new feature is meant to give SMEs a faster, clearer way to pay suppliers and partners around the world.
The deal comes as UK SMEs move growing volumes of money across borders. Research commissioned by Wise and carried out independently by Edgar, Dunn & Company projects that UK SMEs will send more than £615.5 billion overseas in 2027, and that SME overseas payments will grow 22% between 2026 and 2029. The same research estimates that hidden fees, including exchange rate margins, will cost UK SMEs £7.5 billion in 2027. The modelling was carried out between September and November 2024.
Wise Platform runs on Wise’s global payments network, with more than 80 licences and direct access to nine domestic payment systems. OakNorth joins institutions such as Monzo, UniCredit, N26, Morgan Stanley and Standard Chartered that already use it for their international payments.
Manuel Sandhofer, EMEA General Manager at Wise Platform, said the aim is to make cross border payments faster, clearer and cheaper for small businesses, which lose money to hidden fees that could otherwise go back into growth.
“UK businesses are increasingly operating across borders, but moving money internationally can still be unnecessarily complex and expensive. For small businesses in particular, every pound lost to hidden fees is money that could otherwise be invested back into growth. Wise Platform is built to make cross-border payments fast, transparent and low-cost and we’re excited to work with OakNorth to help their customers maximise the value of every transaction they make,” Sandhofer said.
Peter King, Director of Business Banking at OakNorth, said the bank’s customers have increasingly global needs and want to know what a payment will cost and when it will arrive, and that the integration gives them a more transparent way to move money abroad.
“Our customers are ambitious businesses with increasingly global needs and they need banking services that can keep up with the pace of their growth. Whether they’re paying suppliers overseas, entering new markets or working with international partners, knowing what their payments will cost and when their money will arrive are non-negotiable. By integrating Wise Platform, we can give our customers a better and more transparent way to move money internationally, helping them spend less time managing cross-border payments and more time focused on growing their businesses,” King said.
For a growing business that pays overseas suppliers regularly, knowing the cost and the arrival time before a payment goes out could make cash planning simpler. For OakNorth, using Wise’s infrastructure could let it offer international payments without building its own network, though neither company has said when the feature will go live.
Digital Trade Outlook’s View: The Middle Market Gap
What stands out is the kind of customer at the centre of this deal. OakNorth lends to businesses with turnover of £1 million to £100 million, a group large enough to pay suppliers abroad regularly but one that may be too small for a lender to justify building its own cross border network. Wise Platform’s pitch is that a bank can offer those payments inside its own service instead of sending clients elsewhere. With no live date or volumes disclosed, the thing to watch is whether other lenders in that middle segment follow, and how much of their customers’ payment activity actually moves onto the platform.
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