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What this page is: Delvantic's full research page for Wise Plc (WSE) — AI-driven forensic equity research: mechanical valuation models (DCF, EPV, anchored-PE, scenario) plus three independent AI lenses (Quality / Value / Sentiment). Everything below is rendered server-side; you are not missing content that requires JavaScript. All scores are predictions and research opinions, not financial advice.
Our current read (analysis of 2026-08-23): Designation Watch · Gem Score +17 (−100…+100 Quality+Value blend) · Quality 59 · Value -17 · Sentiment -9 (timing only, not weighted)
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reference-name attribute you can cite):
profile-header/price-overview— company profile, live quote, market capextended-analysis— the core: three AI lens reads with findings, scores, and the analyst memofuture-predictions— our forward price-band predictionsmarket-narrative/ai-findings/gpt-critique— narrative context, cross-model findings, and an adversarial critique of our own analysis (near the end of the document)- Members-only sections (render as login gates for anonymous readers):
price-history,income-trend,key-metrics,financials(statement tables),insider-trading. The analysis above is public; the raw data tables require a free account.
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any ticker resolves at delvantic.com/stock/TICKER ·
raw inputs are public-company filings and market data (via licensed data feeds);
every model, score, lens read, and prediction on this page is Delvantic's own analysis.
Wise Plc
WSE NASDAQWise Plc is a leading fintech company that provides global payment solutions, specializing in cross-border money transfers. It enables individuals and businesses to send, receive, and manage money across multiple currencies with low costs and high speed by matching offsetting currency transactions where possible. Key offerings include personal and business multi-currency accounts, debit cards, online currency exchanges, and integration with alternative payment methods. Wise Plc operates local accounts in numerous jurisdictions, facilitating faster transfers compared to traditional banks, and serves primarily private clients alongside small and midsize enterprises through its platform, which is also expanding to backend solutions for financial institutions. Customers can access these services via mobile apps and web platforms for seamless financial management worldwide. Founded in 2011 and headquartered in London, United Kingdom, Wise Plc plays a pivotal role in the digital payments sector by promoting transparent, efficient international money movement.
Price Overview
Price History (1 Year)
Revenue & Net Income Trend
Wise Plc is a foreign private issuer — it reports to the U.S. SEC once a year (on Form 20-F or 40-F) rather than filing the quarterly statements (10-Q) that U.S.-domiciled companies must submit. Our financial statements are read directly from SEC filings, so for this company only annual figures exist at the source.
This is a property of how the company files, not missing or broken data — its filing history shows 1 annual reports, the latest filed 2026-06-25, and no quarterly filings . The company may still publish quarterly results on its own investor-relations site.
| Period | Revenue | Net Income | Net Margin | YoY/QoQ |
|---|
Key Metrics
EPS (Diluted): 48.43
Total Equity: $1.93B
Shares: 1,029,700,000
Total Debt: $334.70M
Cash: $27.80B
EBITDA: $605.10M
Total Debt: $334.70M
Cash: $27.80B
Revenue: $1.89B
Revenue: $1.89B
Revenue: $1.89B
Total Equity: $1.93B
Tax Rate: 24.5%
Equity: $1.93B
Total Debt: $334.70M
Cash: $27.80B
Current Liabilities: $30.81B
Long-Term Debt: $328.70M
Total Debt: $334.70M
Total Equity: $1.93B
Shares: 1,029,700,000
Shares: 1,029,700,000
CapEx: -$19.60M
Shares: 1,029,700,000
Stock Price: $13.09
Net Income: $498.70M
Industry Benchmarks
Income Statement (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 15, 2026 10:51am (8d ago)| Metric | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $1.3B | $1.5B | $1.9B |
| Cost of Revenue | — | — | — |
| Gross Profit | — | — | — |
| Operating Expenses | $1.1B | $1.4B | $1.9B |
| Operating Income | $650.1M | $728.2M | $590.7M |
| Net Income | $501.5M | $550.3M | $498.7M |
| EBITDA | $664.4M | $737.9M | $605.1M |
| EPS | $48.57 | $53.31 | $48.92 |
| EPS (Diluted) | $47.81 | $52.63 | $48.43 |
Balance Sheet (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 15, 2026 10:51am (8d ago)| Metric | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash & Equivalents | — | — | $18.1B | $27.8B |
| Total Current Assets | — | — | $24.6B | $33.0B |
| Total Assets | — | — | $24.8B | $33.3B |
| Current Liabilities | — | — | $22.9B | $30.8B |
| Long-Term Debt | — | — | $0 | $328.7M |
| Total Liabilities | — | — | $23.0B | $31.3B |
| Total Equity | $673.0M | $1.2B | $1.7B | $1.9B |
| Retained Earnings | — | — | $1.7B | $2.1B |
Cash Flow (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 15, 2026 10:51am (8d ago)| Metric | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Cash Flow | $4.1B | $5.7B | $7.6B |
| Capital Expenditure | -$13.4M | -$44.1M | -$19.6M |
| Free Cash Flow | $4.1B | $5.7B | $7.5B |
| Acquisitions (net) | — | — | — |
| Net Debt Issued / (Repaid) | $0 | $0 | $328.7M |
| Dividends Paid | — | — | — |
| Stock Buybacks | — | — | — |
| Net Change in Cash | $3.8B | $4.8B | $9.7B |
Growth Trends (YoY %)
Last updated: Aug 15, 2026 10:51am (8d ago)| Metric | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue Growth | +16.9% | +22.5% |
| Gross Profit Growth | — | — |
| Operating Income Growth | +12.0% | -18.9% |
| Net Income Growth | +9.7% | -9.4% |
| EBITDA Growth | +11.1% | -18.0% |
Deep Analysis
Narrative Economics
market-narrative step).
AI Lens 4th lens · how AI reaches this business · 5-yr
2026-08-15Wise's cost-to-serve is dominated by human-intensive compliance, verification, fraud review and multilingual support — exactly the work large models compress — while the scarce inputs (60+ jurisdictional licences, direct membership of local clearing systems, pre-funded multi-currency liquidity) are untouched by cheaper software.
The monetised unit is a take rate on volume that Wise deliberately grinds down; AI-driven price transparency and agent-mediated routing make cross-border pricing a pure commodity comparison, accelerating the decline in revenue per unit of volume faster than cost savings arrive.
Whether AI cost savings are retained or recycled into price cuts — observable in cost-to-serve per active customer versus cross-currency take rate and gross-profit-per-customer trend each half.
Direct access to domestic payment schemes in multiple countries, the licence and capital stack behind it, and the treasury netting engine that lets Wise settle locally instead of correspondent-hopping — regulatory and balance-sheet assets, not code.
AI Lens thesis
AI reaches Wise almost entirely through the cost line and the interface, not the rails: the physical-legal plumbing of cross-border settlement is a licensing and liquidity business that cheap intelligence cannot instantiate, so the substitution risk is low; instead AI compresses the operational overhead that historically justified Wise's fee (verification, sanctions screening, dispute and support handling) and simultaneously strips away the information asymmetry that lets banks charge hidden spreads. Wise is structurally the beneficiary of transparency because it is the low-price provider — an agent optimising for cost and speed routes to Wise, and Wise Platform lets banks and marketplaces outsource the function rather than build it. The catch is value capture: management's stated model is to pass efficiency gains through as lower prices, visible in the 2026 operating-margin step-down to 31.2% even as revenue grew 22.5% against a 5.6% industry rate. So the honest read is a stronger competitive position with a structurally deflating revenue unit — good for volume and durability, ambiguous for per-share economics.
What the market may be underestimating
Upside Wise Platform as the settlement layer that AI agents and embedded-finance partners call: infrastructure demand priced per transaction, where Wise earns from competitors' and banks' volume without paying to acquire the end customer.
Downside AI collapses the cost of running a compliant remitter's back office, which mainly helps the licensed challengers and stablecoin-native rails that already have distribution — Wise's operational efficiency edge, a real historic differentiator, becomes purchasable software.
Outcome range spread 42
Growth Outlook
Analyzed 2026-08-17 16:12The question every valuation on this page silently assumes: is this company likely to grow? Judged forward — the business, its category, the world — against what's already printed.
Claude Reading
The synthesis verdict of $199 fair value against a $13.09 price is nonsense on its face, and it's worth stating why before engaging the substance. Wise trades in pence on the LSE; the "$13.09" is roughly 1,309p, and the ~$13B market cap the file cites is consistent with that. A "P/E of 0.27" is actually ~27x, not 0.27x. So the DCF that spits out $199 is comparing a GBp-denominated share price to a USD-denominated per-share intrinsic value — a 100x unit error. Strip that out and you get fair value in the ballpark of ~$20 equivalent (roughly 2,000p), meaning a real, defensible ~30-50% upside case, not a 1,400% one. Every downstream model that leaned on the synthesis number is contaminated.
Working from the actuals: FY26 revenue of $1.89B on 22% YoY growth, operating income of $591M (31% op margin), net income of $499M — but net income declined 9.4% YoY while revenue grew 22%. That's meaningful operating deleverage in a business that's supposed to be scaling. Op income actually fell from $728M to $591M despite +$340M of incremental revenue; incremental operating margin was deeply negative this year. The bear narrative — that Wise is passing through interest income benefits to customers via lower fees to defend share against Revolut, Airwallex, and Stripe — is directly visible in these numbers. The FCF figure of $7.55B is not owner earnings; it's customer float sitting on the balance sheet ($27.8B cash vs $1.93B equity tells you most of that cash isn't theirs). Treating that as free cash flow is the second major model error, and it's what's inflating the DCF. Real owner FCF is closer to net income plus modest working capital, call it $500-600M.
At ~$13B market cap on $499M of net income, Wise trades at ~26x earnings and ~7x revenue — premium multiples for a business whose earnings just declined and whose operating margin compressed ~700bps YoY. The mature-earner classification is wrong (it's still growing 22%), but the high-growth-fintech framing also glosses over the margin story. Insider activity is net selling via option-exercise-and-dump — neutral-to-slightly-negative, not the "neutral" the model calls. The "macro headwinds" flag matters more than tagged: Wise's profitability got a huge tailwind from rates 2023-2025, and a rate-cutting cycle removes interest income on customer balances, which is exactly the wrong direction for a business already showing margin compression. The Market Forces model's "show me story on operating leverage" is the correct read and probably the single most useful line in the entire prior output.
I dissent from the synthesis verdict as stated ($199 fair value is arithmetically wrong) but partially agree with the direction: at ~26x earnings for 20%+ revenue growth and a genuine structural position in cross-border payments, Wise looks reasonably-to-modestly-cheap if — and only if — the FY26 margin compression is a one-year investment cycle rather than the new steady state. If op margin recovers to 38%+ next year, the stock is worth 1,700-2,000p (~$17-20 equivalent). If FY26 margins are the new normal and rate tailwinds fade, fair value is closer to current price or 10-15% below. The contrarian argument I'd make even against my own moderate bullishness: Wise's take rate has been declining for years by explicit management design, competition from Revolut is accelerating in Wise's core EU corridors, and Stripe/Adyen are pushing into consumer remittance. A 20%+ revenue grower whose earnings are shrinking is not a compounder — it's a share-donor buying growth. Starter position defensible at 1,300p; I'd want the next print to confirm margin stabilization before adding.
GPT Reading
The first thing that stands out is that the dataset is internally inconsistent in a way that makes the headline “extreme undervaluation” call unreliable. A company with $1.89B of revenue, $498.7M of net income, and a $12.93B market cap does not have a 0.27x P/E; it has something closer to 26x. Likewise, a business producing $7.53B of free cash flow on $1.89B of revenue and holding $27.80B of cash against just $334.7M of debt is not a normal operating profile for a cross-border payments platform with $1.93B of equity. Those balance sheet and cash flow figures are almost certainly distorted by customer balances or accounting classification rather than distributable corporate cash. So I would throw out the negative EV/revenue, negative EV/EBITDA, and the DCF claiming $146-$199 of fair value. The real valuation question is much simpler: is roughly 26x earnings and about 6.8x-7.1x sales fair for a business growing revenue 22% but seeing earnings slip?
On the cleanest numbers, Wise looks good but not cheap. Revenue rose from $1.32B in 2024 to $1.55B in 2025 to $1.89B in 2026, a healthy two-year CAGR near 20%, and net income stayed very high at $501.5M, $550.3M, then $498.7M. That means the company has already achieved scale economics most fintechs never reach: 2026 operating margin was 31.2% and net margin 26.3%. The problem is that this is no longer a classic operating leverage story. Operating profit fell from $728.2M in 2025 to $590.7M in 2026 even as revenue grew 22%, and net income fell about 9%. That is a meaningful negative signal. If growth is still above 20% but EBIT is down nearly 19%, then either pricing is being pushed down, customer acquisition and product investment are rising, or some favorable prior-year tailwind reversed. At $12.93B, the market is still valuing Wise as a quality compounder, not as a broken fintech. Given the deterioration in profit conversion, I think that is about right.
What I see is a business transitioning from “surprisingly profitable disruptor” to “very good financial utility.” That can still be an excellent company, but excellent companies are not always excellent stocks. A near-7x sales multiple and mid-20s earnings multiple require confidence that the earnings dip is temporary and that revenue can keep compounding near 20% without structural margin erosion. The available numbers do not prove that yet. In fact, the best raw-data reading is that revenue quality is strong, but incremental profitability has recently worsened. The market seems to be discounting that correctly. I would not short a company with 26% net margins, a low-debt balance sheet, and sustained 20% top-line growth, but I also would not call it deeply undervalued just because some screening metrics are corrupted.
The best argument against my cautious read is obvious: even after the 2026 earnings dip, Wise still generated nearly $500M of net income on less than $2B of revenue, which is exceptional in fintech; revenue growth actually accelerated to 22.5% year over year; and if 2025 margins were temporarily inflated while 2026 reflects reinvestment, then the business may simply be choosing growth over near-term margin maxing. On that framing, paying around 26x earnings for a business with ~20% revenue CAGR, 26% net margin, and minimal leverage could be attractive, especially if the company can hold even a 25%-30% operating margin while scaling. A bull would also say that the cash flow weirdness, even if mostly customer-funds related, at least confirms the model is capital-light, with capex of just $19.6M. I weigh these positives heavily, but not enough to get bullish at this price because the burden of proof is now on margin stabilization, not on revenue credibility.
What would change my mind is straightforward. If the next annual period shows revenue above roughly $2.25B while operating income recovers back above $700M and net income returns comfortably above $550M, then the 2026 margin slippage likely was transient and I would move bullish even in the mid-teens. Conversely, if revenue growth drops into the mid-teens while operating margin stays near 31% or lower and earnings remain flat to down, then the stock deserves a lower multiple, and I would view $13 as still too rich, with a fairer entry closer to 20x earnings, or roughly $10-$11 on current profit levels.
Grok Reading
The headline numbers that jump out are not the ones the valuation engine latched onto. Revenue compounded from $1.32B to $1.55B to $1.89B across the last three fiscal years—solid ~20% growth, with the most recent leg at +22.5%—yet operating profit fell from $728.2M to $590.7M and net income from $550.3M to $498.7M. That is margin compression in plain sight: operating margin collapsed from roughly 47% to 31%, and earnings are flat-to-down on a multi-year basis (earnings CAGR –0.3%, recent year –9.4%). At a $12.93B market cap the stock trades at about 26x trailing earnings and ~6.8–7.1x sales. For a cross-border payments franchise still growing the top line at low-20s, that multiple is only attractive if the margin reset is finished. The data do not yet prove that.
The balance-sheet and cash-flow figures that produced the absurd –EV multiples and the $146–$199 “fair value” are almost certainly customer float, not corporate wealth. $27.8B of cash against $1.93B of equity and $335M of debt, paired with $7.53B of reported free cash flow on $499M of net income and only $20M of capex, is the classic payments-company accounting signature: customer balances inflate cash, operating cash flow, and destroy any EV-based screen. ROA of 1.5% and negative ROIC are the same artifact. Strip the float and you own a real, profitable fintech earning high-20s net margins on a growing volume base, levered lightly (debt/equity 0.17), with ROE around 26%. That is a good business. It is not a $200 stock, and treating deposit-driven FCF as owner earnings is how the composite model manufactured 1,400% upside that has no economic basis.
The strongest counter-argument is straightforward: if revenue keeps compounding at ~20% and operating margin stabilizes anywhere near the current 31% (let alone recovers toward the mid-40s printed in prior years), then 26x earnings and 7x sales for a capital-light global payments network with a structural cost advantage over correspondent banks is cheap, not fair. FCF quality on an adjusted basis is excellent, the balance sheet is clean, and the company already cleared the profitability hurdle that most fintech peers never reach. A re-acceleration in operating leverage—or even simple operating-profit growth in line with revenue—would make today’s price look like a gift, and the “fallen angel” narrative would flip. Insider activity is noise (option exercises followed by sales), not a tell.
I weigh that bull case as conditional, not base. The last reported year showed the opposite of operating leverage: more revenue, less profit. Until that reverses, the market is rationally paying a mature-compounder multiple for a business whose earnings power is still being tested by competition and mix. The prior models’ deep-value verdict is a data-quality failure, not alpha.
What flips me is simple and near-term: two consecutive halves in which operating profit grows at least in line with revenue (restoring confidence that 31% is a floor, not a waystation), or a clear disclosure breakout of corporate cash versus customer funds that lets true owner earnings be measured without guesswork. A further 300–500 bps of operating-margin erosion on still-rising revenue would push me firmly into overvalued.
Big-3 Panel — where each AI stands
Advanced Analysis Forensic deep-dive · separate lenses
The business is in excellent financial shape. Liquid cash of $27.8B against essentially zero net debt, FCF of $7.53B in the latest year, and OCF/NI of 11.2x point to genuine, cash-backed earnings rather than accounting profit. Revenue has compounded from $1.32B to $1.89B across the three years shown (roughly 20%+ CAGR) while net income held in the $499M-$550M band and free cash flow accelerated from $4.06B to $7.53B - the FCF far outrunning reported net income is consistent with a payments/e-money model where customer float and working capital swell as volumes grow. Diluted share count edged down from 1.05B to 1.03B with SBC only ~5% of revenue, so per-share economics are being protected, not diluted. Operating margin fell from 49.1% and 47.1% to 31.2% in the latest year - a real step-down that deserves scrutiny (reinvestment, pricing changes, or mix). The Altman Z 0.53 'distress' flag is a false positive: Z-score is calibrated for asset-heavy industrials, and a fintech carrying enormous customer cash balances mechanically distorts the ratio. Insider activity is benign: two small option-exercise-and-sell transactions totaling ~$1.3M, immaterial for a $13B company. Overall this reads as a durable, well-capitalized, self-funding compounder with one genuine yellow flag in the margin compression.
Verify before trusting this (5)
- What drove the operating margin drop from 47.1% to 31.2% in FY26 - interest income reclassification, pricing cuts to customers, marketing spend, or one-offs?
- How much of the $7.53B FCF reflects customer float/working capital vs. genuine operating cash - and how it would look on a customer-cash-adjusted basis
- Segment and geographic customer concentration in the 10-K/annual report
- Nature of the two named insiders' roles and any 10b5-1 plan disclosures around the July 2026 sells
- Regulatory capital requirements as an e-money institution and any restrictions on the cash balance
The e2e composite fair value of $146 and signal-adjusted $199 imply ~1400% upside on a $13 stock - that is not a valuation, it is a broken model (likely a DCF with unrealistic terminal growth on a 20%-grower whose operating margins just wobbled). I throw those out as anchors and lean on the EPV floor of $33.40, which at least reflects current earnings power without heroic assumptions. Even haircutting that EPV for the recent operating margin compression (48% down materially) and competitive pressure from Stripe, PayPal and bank rails, a deserved value in the high teens to low $20s is defensible for a net-cash, FCF-growing, buyback-active fintech compounding revenue ~20%. Against $13.09, that's a 30-50% gap - real, but not the frame-extreme dislocation the composite suggests. The market is pricing Wise as a fallen fintech whose take-rate and operating leverage are structurally impaired; the bull case only needs margins to stabilize, not re-expand, for the stock to re-rate. Quality is genuine (strong lens, net cash, shrinking share count), which raises deserved value modestly, but I refuse to double-count quality as cheapness. This is a modest discount to a good business, not a deep-value layup.
Verify before trusting this (5)
- Latest operating margin trajectory - is the drop from 48% one-off (interest income normalization) or structural?
- Take-rate trend by corridor and customer segment in the most recent filing
- Guidance on operating leverage and reinvestment intensity for the next 12-18 months
- Actual buyback pace and remaining authorization
- Customer acquisition cost and cohort revenue retention
The macro tape is mildly constructive (VIX 14.3, S&P near highs, risk-on score +52), but with a 0.51 beta Wise barely inhales it - the market-wide tailwind lands as a light breeze here. The active narrative is a fallen-angel archetype at minimal intensity: there is no cult bid, no mania, and no active de-rating story either. That combination produces very little directional pressure - the tape is not doing the work for bulls, and no fresh bear narrative is being weaponized against the name. Analyst tone and news flow are quiet in the brief, reinforcing that this is a low-attention name rather than a battleground. Positive multi-year momentum (19.6% CAGR) provides a mild trend tailwind, offset by softer 3-year relative performance and a modest rise in leverage that gives skeptics something to point at. Higher rates and a stretched market PE are a generic overhang on fintech multiples, but Wise's profitability and low beta blunt that pressure versus story-driven fintech peers. Net: crosscurrents roughly cancel, with a very slight lean to neutral-positive from the risk-on backdrop and durable (if quiet) narrative.
Verify before trusting this (5)
- Any analyst target revisions or downgrades that would signal the fallen-angel narrative is hardening
- Cross-border payment volume prints and take-rate commentary that could reignite either bull or bear framing
- Signs of sector rotation into or out of profitable fintech (Adyen, PayPal tape as tell)
- Fresh competitive news (Stripe, bank-led rails, stablecoin cross-border) that could sharpen the bear narrative
- VIX regime shift - a spike would disproportionately spare this low-beta name relative to fintech peers
AI reaches Wise almost entirely through the cost line and the interface, not the rails: the physical-legal plumbing of cross-border settlement is a licensing and liquidity business that cheap intelligence cannot instantiate, so the substitution risk is low; instead AI compresses the operational overhead that historically justified Wise's fee (verification, sanctions screening, dispute and support handling) and simultaneously strips away the information asymmetry that lets banks charge hidden spreads. Wise is structurally the beneficiary of transparency because it is the low-price provider — an agent optimising for cost and speed routes to Wise, and Wise Platform lets banks and marketplaces outsource the function rather than build it. The catch is value capture: management's stated model is to pass efficiency gains through as lower prices, visible in the 2026 operating-margin step-down to 31.2% even as revenue grew 22.5% against a 5.6% industry rate. So the honest read is a stronger competitive position with a structurally deflating revenue unit — good for volume and durability, ambiguous for per-share economics.
None surfaced.
Verify before trusting this (8)
- cross-currency take rate per half
- interest income sensitivity to rates
- revenue growth vs volume growth gap
- operating margin trajectory
- price reductions announced per year
- gross profit per active customer
- cross-border volume growth vs GDP
- active customer additions per quarter
The structural migration of cross-border payments from correspondent banking to purpose-built rails is early and slow-moving, which favours Wise for years regardless of the macro print. Two forces cut the other way: the rate cycle turning down deflates float-based interest income (already visible in negative earnings YoY against strong revenue), and regulated dollar-stablecoin settlement could compress the cost advantage on major corridors late this decade. Migration, remote work and SME e-commerce keep the underlying volume pool expanding. Net: business direction up, reported earnings noisier than the franchise.
Prediction unavailable. valuation-synthesis has no result for WSE — the prediction needs its fair-value anchors.