Wise fined by US CFPB for allegedly advertising inaccurate fees – FinTech Futures: Fintech news 

Global money transfer firm Wise has been ordered to pay a $2.025 million civil money penalty by the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for allegedly “advertising inaccurate fees and failing to properly disclose exchange rates and other costs”.Wise fined by US CFPBAnnouncing the decision in a post on its website, the CFPB alleges that Wise “misled customers in the United States about its ATM fees and failed to properly disclose other fees”.The CFPB has also ordered Wise “to pay approximately $450,000 in redress to harmed consumers”.In its post, the regulator alleges that Wise made “a multitude of disclosure errors”, including “failing to disclose accurate fees to consumers who funded prepaid accounts using a credit card through Apple Pay or Google Pay, failing to properly disclose exchange rates, failing to refund fees when funds were not available to the recipient by the date of availability, and failing to make other required disclosures”.“By deceiving customers, Wise gave itself an unfair advantage over other competitors in the remittances market,” comments now-former CFPB director Rohit Chopra.“New technology can help make money transfers cheaper and more convenient, but companies must be truthful and live up to longstanding law,” Chopra continues.Wise, headquartered in the UK, has provided prepaid accounts and remittance transfers to US consumers since launching its regional subsidiary, Wise US, in 2016. The subsidiary services more than three million Americans across 48 states.In a statement sent to FinTech Futures, Wise says: “In February 2022, the CFPB highlighted certain issues where Wise had inadvertently been operating in ways the Bureau deemed necessary to address. These were mainly technical issues such as having certain materials downloadable as PDFs, updating wording choices like ‘Amount We’ll Convert’ to ‘Transfer Amount’, displaying exchange rates rounded up to 4 decimal points instead of 6 decimal points (which was more accurate), and having full disclaimer text available in-page rather than through a hyperlink. In limited cases, some US customers saw slightly incorrect fees, which, upon receiving the findings in February 2022, Wise proactively and voluntarily compensated in full, totaling $450,000 across the affected customers.The company states that it “cooperated fully with the CFPB and immediately worked to address all identified issues”, with the “majority resolved by November 2022”.Its statement continues: “While Wise strongly disagrees with the CFPB’s characterization of Wise’s conduct, including that Wise’s mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees was somehow ‘misleading’ by disclosing a more accurate rate of 6 decimal places instead of 4 decimal places, we worked with the CFPB in good faith to conclude the matter and enable Wise to continue focusing on saving customers money.”