How RemotePass Offers Payroll for Remote Teams Using Wise Business - A Case Study

RemotePass® is an HR platform for onboarding and paying remote teams, which was launched to meet changing company needs during Covid. With RemotePass, companies can access all the tools they need to onboard and manage remote workers, from locally compliant contract templates and document collection, to convenient and cost-efficient payroll for remote teams.

In this case study, we'll cover how RemotePass partners with Wise Business to enable its customers to pay remote contractors and employees all over the world, in 40+ currencies with the mid-market exchange rate and low, transparent fees.

If you're a business sending more than 100,000 GBP (or equivalent) monthly across different currencies, get in touch with the Wise Business sales team to discuss the best solutions for your needs.

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Story of RemotePass

The story of RemotePass starts back in 2019 in UAE, although at the time, the intention of co-founder Kamal Reggad was to create something quite different - a SaaS platform for business travel and expenses called SafarPass.

The launch of SafarPass was proceeding well, but then Covid hit, and both personal and business travel came to a grinding halt.

That prompted the decision to pivot into something that was more relevant to the context of the pandemic - supporting the large number of teams and companies that were now learning all about helping their employees and contractors make the transition to remote work.

In many ways, this was a natural decision. Kamal explains:

Because organisations working with employees and contractors in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe need to run payroll in such a large number of different currencies, payroll operations for remote workers quickly become complicated and expensive. That’s a distraction for businesses and can mean that great employees aren’t taken on, simply to avoid more operational complexity and cost. Kamal explains:

“When it comes to contracts, compliance, and payments, banks are super expensive when you make transfers. You suddenly become the level one support when somebody does not receive their payments, and then you have to chase the bank to get the SWIFT trace, and all of those terms that you have to learn.”

RemotePass quickly found its niche, allowing companies to onboard remote workers based solely on their job fit, without worrying about local payments and compliance.

This works better for the business, and better for employees and contractors, as a result, RemotePass now works with clients from around the world, from the US, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

For Kamal, RemotePass does more than just make processes easier for a business, it allows individuals to get employed without needing to choose between their home and their career.

“And of course, one of the most exciting aspects is enabling talent in emerging markets to get employed by global companies. In this model, location is not a barrier; talent doesn't need to relocate to the UAE, the US, or Canada for work. They can remain close to their families and loved ones while still securing a job, getting paid and accessing benefits.”

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RemotePass challenge - enable payroll for remote teams in a transparent and scalable way

Wise Business helps RemotePass with payroll for remote workers, across dozens of currencies, with the mid-market exchange rate and low, transparent fees.

Here’s what Kamal says about the challenges of managing payroll for remote employees through a bank:

“In our case, working with traditional banks did not make sense, as you don't get visibility over when the money will arrive or any intermediary fees, and most of the process is manual. When starting a payroll company and anticipating having to make payments to tens of thousands of people on a monthly basis, traditional banks do not offer the scalability we need.”

Scalability and transparency are the most important considerations in the RemotePass partnership with Wise. RemotePass was able to use the Wise API to get international payroll options up and running in a matter of a few days, and because Wise always uses the mid-market exchange rate when converting currencies, with low, transparent fees, it’s easier for clients to see and understand the costs and delivery times for any specific payment.

“So basically, it made complete sense to work with Wise; the APIs just work. This allows us to offer complete transparency to our users, as we don't add any markup to the transactions. We provide a detailed breakdown, showing that the transfer is sent through Wise, outlining how much the user will receive, the fees involved, and when it will arrive. This level of detail and transparency is invaluable, especially for the most important payment of the month.”

Wise Business' positive impact on RemotePass' challenges

As we’ve highlighted, the Wise Business API solution allows RemotePass to help businesses to automate international payroll. The powerful Wise API has been built for ease of use, and it enabled RemotePass to offer solutions to their clients much more quickly than traditional integrations. Here’s what Kamal says:

“When we launched the product with Wise, we were up and running in a matter of days—thanks to a seamless API integration. And that was really remarkable."

But the Wise Business advantage doesn’t stop there. Kamal explains that clients really love Wise as a payment method because employees and contractors get better visibility on what they’ll be paid and when money will arrive.

Wise doesn’t route payments through SWIFT so there are no intermediary fees to worry about, which allows payers to give clarity in advance about how much a contractor can expect to receive. In turn, RemotePass can pay it forward and pass on these savings to customers, boosting their popularity and engaging new customers more easily:

Want to do more with Wise Business? You’ll get all of these handy features with Wise, too:

• Hold 40+ currencies, send payments to 80+ countries, and get local bank details for 9 currencies
• Get business debit and expense cards for yourself and your team, for spending in 150+ countries
• Exchange currencies with low, transparent fees and the mid-market exchange rate
• Make batch payments to up to 1,000 people at a time - ideal for employee payroll or when paying contractors
• Automate workflows with the Wise API
• Add and manage user permissions so everyone in your team has the tools they need to do their job

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Pricing/fees: Please see Terms of Use for your region or visit Wise Fees & Pricing for the most up to date pricing and fee information

With more and more individuals working remotely now, businesses can miss out on the best talent if they don’t have convenient, quick and cheap ways to run international payroll. Using a solution like RemotePass in partnership with Wise Business makes it simple to pay people quickly and transparently in 40+ currencies, no matter where in the world they happen to be.