Azimo Business Alternative in the UK

Paola Faben Oliveira

14.09.22 (updated more than 1 year ago)

3 minute read

If your business sends or receives international payments, you may well have used Azimo Business at some point.

But since the global money transfer service stopped supporting transfers on 31st August 2022¹, you’ll need to find an alternative solution.

In this guide, we’ll run through a few of the alternatives to the Azimo Business account. This includes prices, pros and cons, so that you can choose the best international transfer solution for your needs.

📝 Table of contents:
What was Azimo Business? Why Azimo Business stopped supporting transfers? Azimo Business alternatives Azimo alternatives comparison Manage international business finances with Wise

What was Azimo Business?

Azimo Business was an online money transfer service, offering fast, secure and lower cost business payments overseas. It was the business arm of Azimo, which was targeted at individuals wanting to send money to friends and family internationally. At one point, the Azimo app had nearly 2 million users².

The company was founded in London in 2012, before moving its headquarters to the Netherlands in 2019³.

Azimo Business was known for its competitive exchange rates and transparent pricing system, charging just one single fee per transaction⁴.

Why Azimo Business stopped supporting transfers

On 31st August 2022, both Azimo and Azimo Business officially stopped processing transfers¹. This followed an acquisition by payroll processing and workforce management platform Papaya Global earlier in the year.

Azimo now has a new strategy, focusing on providing salary payments to business customers¹. Unfortunately for anyone who used its international transfer service, this means no more overseas payments.

Azimo Business alternatives

The good news for businesses is that there are lots of great Azimo alternatives out there. Here are just a few of the best options for international money transfers:

Wise
Revolut
Payoneer
Starling Bank

Azimo alternatives comparison

When choosing an overseas transfer provider, there are a few key things to look for. The cost of upfront transfer fees will always be important, but you also need to be checking whether there’s a markup on the currency exchange rate. Speed, convenience and security are also important concerns.

Let’s see how each of our Azimo alternatives compares on these critical factors, starting with cost:

Provider	Price per transfer	Exchange rate markup
Wise	Variable fee from 0.41% + fixed fee between £0,20 and £4,40	None
Revolut	£3 outside of plan allowance Plans from free to £100/m⁵	Up to 0.4%⁵
Payoneer	Up to 2% + £1.50 fixed fee⁶	0.5%-2%⁷
Starling Bank	£5.50 for SWIFT payments⁸	None⁹

Azimo alternatives: speed, convenience and security

Wise is pretty quick, with transfers usually taking a maximum of 2 working days (although it’s often much quicker).

Besides the Wise account, businesses have access to various features that can make life easier and more conveniente, for example:

Batch payments, make multiple international payments in one go
Expense cards, to manage business expenses with ease
Integration with business tools like Xero or Quickbooks

And, together with all that, you’ll have the peace of mind that Wise is fully regulated and uses sophisticated security measures to keep your money safe.

Transfers with Revolut Business typically take between 3-5 days¹⁰, and are pretty simple to set up. Your money is secured by high quality tech and card protection¹¹.

Payoneer lets you make almost instant payments to other Payoneer customers, while other transfers will be sent within 1-2 days (but may take longer to arrive)¹². For convenience, you can make batch payments of up to 200 at once, with the reassurance that Payoneer is fully regulated and its secure infrastructure is built on leading global banking partners¹³.

Lastly, there’s Starling Bank. International transfers usually take 1-3 days¹⁴ when sent by SWIFT, and you can set up payments using the handy mobile app - where you’ll also be given a delivery date. When it comes to security, it’s good to know that Starling Bank is fully FSCS regulated and claims to have some of the world’s best banking security in its app¹⁵.

Manage international business finances with Wise

If your business regularly sends money overseas, you’ll be looking for the cheapest and most convenient way to do it.

Register to Wise Business account online and you can pay invoices, employees and contractors all over the world in just a few clicks. Better still, you can do it with low, transparent fees and the mid-market exchange rate.

Wise Business makes keeping on top of international cashflow a breeze. You can hold and manage 40+ currencies at once, order expense cards and track everything using integrated accounting tools.

It’s a fantastic alternative to both Azimo and traditional business bank accounts.

Get started now

If you previously relied on Azimo Business for your company’s international payments, you should now have an idea of what else is out there. We’ve given you a few tips for alternatives here in this guide, so that your international business payments can continue with minimum disruption.

Sources used for this article:

Sources checked on 08-09-2022.

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