WISE Neobank in Legal Struggles! Business Accounts Still Active After Two Years? How Is That Possible?

The legal proceedings against the neobank WISE at the Commercial Court of Vienna will be heard on September 13, 2024, after the originally scheduled date in July 2024 was postponed at the request of the defendant’s representatives. The case concerns the allegedly unlawful deactivation of online access to several business accounts without prior notice and without justification by a company.

The plaintiff, who had been a business customer of WISE (formerly TransferWise) for seven years, discovered that all access to his accounts was deactivated almost overnight, which paralyzed his companies for over seven weeks.

The balances in these accounts were not transferred immediately. Only after the plaintiff’s lawyer contacted the bank were various amounts paid out after two months. The exact amounts of the respective balances could not be determined to date, as some of the plaintiff’s customers had made payments from abroad despite an immediate customer email on this matter. WISE has refused to provide any information in this regard.

This is no longer an isolated case. The editorial team has nearly 80 similar cases involving WISE. Hopefully, the court will clarify why WISE did not issue a timely termination. Had the plaintiff received a notice of termination with the statutory notice period, he could have opened an alternative bank account – but this was done without any notice, warning, threat, or anything similar.

The WISE support team only communicated weeks after the deactivation that the suspension was carried out in accordance with their terms of use and internal risk analysis. However, they emphasized that there was no doubt about the credibility of the plaintiff and his business model. So why were the accesses abruptly deactivated? A clarification of the internal risk analysis and which specific terms of use were affected was refused.

The plaintiff must also assume that a business account he had already closed two years ago is still active, even though it was no longer under his control. It is completely unclear what activities WISE conducted with the supposedly closed account, and WISE has refused to provide any information. For example, the plaintiff was informed by email that a transaction he had no knowledge of could not be completed. This transaction, as it turned out, was related to the business account he believed to be closed.

WISE is knowingly accepting the fact that this could result in serious consequences for the account holder. A suspension of a business account means that financial access is cut off from one moment to the next.