Wise appoints Emmanuel Thomassin as CFO
“Emmanuel has a proven track record of scaling companies in rapidly-evolving industries – from startups to public companies. I look forward to working with him as Wise continues on its path to reshape global financial services for the 21st century.”
Wise has announced the appointment of Emmanuel Thomassin as Chief Financial Officer, set to take over at the beginning of October.
Thomassin will replace Matthew Briers, who indicated last year his intention to leave the position and whose departure is effective immediately. In the interim, Kingsley Kemish, Senior Group Financial Director, will act as CFO.
David Wells, Chair of Wise, said: “We’re delighted to welcome Emmanuel as our new Chief Financial Officer after an extensive global search. A seasoned CFO, leader and board member with well over a decade’s experience, Emmanuel has a proven track record of scaling companies in rapidly-evolving industries – from startups to public companies. I look forward to working with him as Wise continues on its path to reshape global financial services for the 21st century.”
Emanuel Thomassin was instrumental in listing Delivery Hero on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange
Emmanuel Thomassin joins Wise from Delivery Hero, a Berlin-based food delivery platform operating in over 70 countries across Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. Thomassin, who joined in 2014, played an instrumental leadership role in the company’s conversion into a stock corporation listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2017.
He was a core driver of the Company’s M&A expansion strategies over the course of the last ten years. Thomassin also brought the Group to its most recent major financial milestone in 2023, having reached its Free Cash Flow breakeven point. Thomassin will remain at Delivery Hero until the end of September 2024.
Wise challenges banks to stop hiding fees
Emmanuel Thomassin will be leading the financial division of Wise, which continues to accuse banks of hiding fees. In a recent study, the company provided two examples:
- For GBP to EUR, HSBC allegedly has the highest fee for exchange rates (3.7%), followed by Lloyds at 3.6%, Barclays at 2.75%, and NatWest, TSB and Santander all at 2.5%.
- In the case of GBP to USD, HSBC also remained the bank with the highest fees with 3.7%, tailed by Lloyds at 3.6%, TSB at 2.9%, Barclays at 2.75%, NatWest at 2.5%, and Santander at 2.3%.
In both cases, Starling, Monzo, and Zing, HSBC’s new competitor to Wise, were found to have no hidden fees. The study looked at these exchange rates between December 2023 and January 2024. In each case, Wise argues that these marked-up exchange rates were not communicated as a cost, whereas those that didn’t mark-up used the mid-market rate.
Cross-border payments regulation requires that payment service providers “shall inform the payer prior to the initiation of the payment transaction, in a clear, neutral and comprehensible manner, of the estimated charges for currency conversion services applicable to the credit transfer.”
Independent research conducted by Censuswide polling 1,000 UK adults in January 2024, also found only 22% of Britons think their bank gives them a fair deal across products and services. Nine-in-ten of those surveyed said that banks tend to mark-up exchange rates.
