Barclays starts coverage of Wise at ‘overweight’

"To say that Wise is disrupting the market for consumer and SMB foreign exchange transactions would be an understatement; over its ten-year history, the company has seen extraordinary growth and now has a run-rate transaction volume of more than £62bn," it said.

"The strength of the user experience, increasingly global coverage, absolute fee transparency, faster transfer speeds and significant cost advantage have prompted rapid consumer and SMB adoption, primarily via word of mouth."

Barclays said Wise's financial profile reflects this combination of rapid volume growth and cost-effective customer acquisition.

It noted that over the past two years, revenue has grown at a 54% compound annual growth rate, and, unlike many fintechs at this stage of growth, Wise has been profitable since FY17.

"We see considerable upside potential to conservative mid-term guidance, if current trends sustain, not least given Wise's increasing expansion beyond consumer and SMB into providing a platform offering to other fintech and software businesses," it said.

That said, however, Barclays argued that the current valuation of around £10bn already reflects outstanding multi-year performance, hence the equalweight rating.