Youbiz Review: Great business account option for SMEs in Singapore?

Youbiz¹ is the Youtrip² business account. If you’ve used Youtrip for paying for things when you travel, you may be wondering whether or not the Youbiz business account is worth choosing for your business finance needs.

Youbiz offers a corporate card for use in 150+ countries, with a linked multi-currency account for holding and exchanging up to 9 currencies. The Youbiz card also features unlimited 1% cashback on all card spending.

So - is Youbiz the right choice for your Singapore business? This Youbiz review walks through all you need to know, including:

Youbiz business account offerings

The Youbiz account has some neat features for Singapore businesses looking to manage their money both here and abroad.

Some useful features you’ll get include:

Card features:

• Corporate card - virtual and physical cards can be issued
• Unlimited 1% cashback on card spending
• No foreign transaction fee for overseas card use

Multi-currency account features:

• Multi-currency account which supports holding up to 9 currencies
• Expense management system - set individual card spend limits for your employees
• Pay local bills through FAST with no fee
• Overseas remittance with competitive costs
• No fee for incoming foreign currency payments

Youbiz account fees and charges

Youbiz offers many services to Singapore business customers with no fees. However, there are a few charges you should know about. Here’s a roundup of some important costs:

*Correct at time of research - 12th November 2024

Wise Business vs Youbiz

If you’re a Singapore business owner you’ll want to compare a few different account and card service providers before you pick one, to make sure you get the very best match for your company needs now and in the future. Youbiz is a solid choice from a local Singapore provider you may already be familiar with — Youtrip — but another option worth looking at is Wise Business.

Wise Business was launched back in 2011 and has upwards of 16 million personal and business customers in many countries and regions globally. Wise offers business account and card services with 40+ supported holding currencies, extras like multi-user access, debit and expense cards and more - with mid-market exchange rates and low fees.

To give you a flavour of how Wise Business and Youbiz measure up side by side, here’s a quick comparison based on some important features and fees:

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

As you can see, while Youbiz and Wise Business have some overlapping features, they’re not quite the same in terms of how they operate or the fees they charge. Probably the major difference in feature availability is the breadth of currencies available from Wise compared to Youbiz.

Wise does have a couple of one time costs to take into consideration, including a one time account opening fee and a small charge to issue a debit or expense card - but it also offers holding and exchange of 40+ currencies, and ways to get paid with local and SWIFT account details in a broad range of global currencies, too.

Ultimately, which provider is best for you will depend on the type of transactions you need to make for your business. We’ll take a closer look at the types of businesses which might benefit from Youbiz in just a moment to help you decide.

How to open a Youbiz account

Made up your mind? Opening a Youbiz account is pretty easy and can be done without leaving home. In fact if you’re opening an account for a business in which you’re a director and you have Singpass active, you don’t even need any documents. Just apply using Singpass and Youbiz can verify you and your business digitally.

Here’s how to open a Youbiz account if that’s the right option for your needs:

1. Open the Youbiz desktop site and tap Open Account
2. Follow the prompts to apply using Singpass or make a manual application
3. Upload any required documents - more on that later
4. Await notification from Youbiz that your account is active
5. Log in with your Youbiz login to start to transact

If you’re submitting your Youbiz application using Singpass you’ll also need to provide an authorisation letter if the person applying for a YouBiz account on behalf of the company is not a company director.

The other option if you don’t want to use Singpass is to make a manual application. In this case you’re asked to provide the following documents:

• Your company’s ACRA Business Profile: Dated within the last 3 months
• ​​Photo of your eligible ID like your passport or NRIC
• An authorisation letter if the person applying for a YouBiz account on behalf of the company is not a company director

Once you’ve submitted everything needed and completed your application you should hear back from Youbiz in a day or two, to confirm you can start to use your account. If you run into any problems or have a question about your account you can reach out to Youbiz directly through their online help pages.

YouBiz: Ideal for which business types?

Smaller businesses with less complex finance operations, which still need to send and receive payments globally and require multi-currency capabilities may benefit from a Youbiz account.

Youbiz is simple to use and has relatively few fees to worry about. If you want an account to use to get paid in one of their 9 supported currencies, with relatively simple transaction needs, Youbiz might be a good choice for you. You can order cards for your team members to make it easy to spend, and you can add users to your account to allow your team to get access to the tools they need to do the job.

Youbiz might suit a small Singapore business which has one or two customers or suppliers abroad, trading in major currencies, and with occasional business travel.

Where Youbiz may fall short is if you’ve got a bigger or more complex organisation sending and receiving higher value payments, and with more frequent transactions to think about.

If you’ve got a bigger company operating out of Singapore, with relatively high turnover, such as a business in IT, software or consulting, which offers services around the world and needs to receive payments and transfer to contractors globally, an alternative like Wise Business might work better than Youtrip.

Wise Business has a few advantages in this respect - including a far greater selection of currencies for holding and exchange. You’ll also get local and SWIFT account details to get paid in foreign currencies conveniently.

Get a Wise Business account today!

Wise Business is optimised for higher value transactions

Wise offers fee discounts if you send over 20,000 GBP (about 34,000 SGD) in a month, which is not something Youbiz markets. This could mean you get a significant discount on the costs of converting currencies and sending money overseas. Plus, Wise Business has much higher payment limits compared to Youbiz⁹.

Both providers have variable limits based on the currency you’re sending, but to give context, while Youbiz supports payments to the UK up to 200,000 GBP only, Wise limits are 1 million GBP - and Youbiz caps USD payments at 500,000 USD, whereas Wise has options to send up to 6 million USD per transfer.

Other handy Wise features for growing SMEs

Wise Business has some unique features which can help SMEs that are expanding their operations in the region.

These include batch payments - saving time - and more options for multi-user access on accounts. This allows you to set a broader range of access options to make sure your team can access the functions they need in the Wise Business account, without any security implications.

Ultimately, whether Youbiz or Wise is right for you depends on your business needs - weigh both up carefully, and remember to think about your future business needs as well as how you transact today.

Conclusion

YouBiz offers a suite of finance solutions for businesses, such as multi-currency accounts, and corporate cards, along with bill payments and spend controls. It has attractive features such as 1% Cashback on all card spend with no cap, and no foreign transaction fees on payments in over 150 currencies which could certainly suit smaller Singapore businesses with global ambitions.

However, if you are a growing business with slightly more complex financial operations, you might quickly outgrow Youbiz.

Check out Wise Business as an add on to your business financial toolkit, and enjoy a more robust feature set including batch payments, accounting software integration, high value payment discounts and more.