Client Stories

Worldwide rebrand - TransferWise to Wise

Making the rebrand happen

Wise (formerly TransferWise) is a London-based financial technology company founded in 2011. It had one of the most successful listings on the London stock market in July last year, with a market valuation of over £8 billion.

Since its inception, Wise has helped people manage their money internationally – cheaply, quickly and transparently. Wise enables its users to send, spend, receive and convert currencies from all over the globe, at the real exchange rate with no hidden fees.

More information on Wise can be found at its website, www.wise.com.

The Project

Wise is one of the most recognised names in the international Fintech sector, famous for bringing transparency to finance and charging as little as possible to those that use the technology.

So, when the global Fintech company wanted to re-brand from TransferWise, which it had been known as since 2011, to Wise in 2020, it faced a challenge of clearing and registering the new brand in many countries around the world.

The solution

Our Intellectual Property team advised on the risks associated with this rebrand and how to mitigate those risks in order to clear any obstacles to the re-brand and secure trade mark registrations in over 60 countries.

The team made sure that all risk mitigation steps were structured in an understandable and digestible way, making them easy to follow internally. We provided updates, effective communication and, if anything was missing, the team supported in any way possible. This included setting up a tracking spreadsheet for Wise which listed possible conflicting marks in a traffic light system.

Our lawyers conducted availability searches and presented possible obstacles to becoming Wise. They worked with an extensive global network to conduct a health check, identify trade mark registrations that would cause a problem, and then took steps to mitigate those risks.

The Results

The re-brand to Wise happened without any significant disputes enabling Wise to operate in the relevant jurisdictions under its new name. It has now been known as Wise for nearly one year.

Using our trade mark expertise and global network of best friend law firms, we enabled Wise to become Wise and continue its positive growth trajectory.

Our involvement

Image of Pau Cox standing in an office

"When Wise asked us to be the legal counsel for this project we were thrilled. It is such an exciting business to support. Registering and clearing trade marks in so many regions around the globe is very challenging especially distilling it all down and advising the business on the risks and how to mitigate them. However, because of our ability to identify risks early, be an advisor to the business and give good recommendations, we avoided any disputes and Wise has been able to re-brand and operate as normal without any hiccups."

Paul Cox Head of International and Intellectual Property

The team

A key consideration for Wise was that the Foot Anstey team were responsive and transparent in any risks that could have arisen, whilst working with its legal network of best friend law firms from around the world. Our lawyers acted as advisors to Wise and provided practical solutions for addressing issues.

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