According to Bank Negara Malaysia Regulation, electronic money issuers like Wise have to ensure that Malaysian users’ e-wallets have holding limits applied.
What are the holding limits?
For personal accounts:
You can't hold more than 20,000 MYR in your account. This includes all the money you hold across all currencies on your Wise Balances and Jars.
If your balance exceeds this limit at any point of the day, we'll send your money out to your external MYR account.
More info on this below under "How do I remain within the holding limit?".
For business accounts:
New businesses in Malaysia cannot have balances on their Wise account.
For business accounts that already had balances there are no limits to how much you can hold in your Wise account.
How do I know if I'm a Malaysian user?
You are a Malaysian user if you've registered with a Malaysian address in your Wise account.
How does Wise calculate my holding balance?
If you're holding money in currencies other than MYR, we use the mid-market rate to convert all your non-MYR balances to MYR to determine your total balance in MYR.
For example:
If you have 10,000 MYR and 3,500 USD. And the exchange rate is 1 USD = 4.40 MYR.
This means your USD is 15,400 in MYR.
So in total, you’re holding 10,000 + 15,400 = 25,400 MYR.
As the holding limit set is 20,000 MYR, you will be 5,400 MYR over the limit.
How do I remain within the holding limit?
You'll need to set up an external account. This is a bank account where Wise automatically sends your excess funds in case your balance exceeds 20,000 MYR. The external account can be either in MYR or in other currencies; just be aware that if we need to convert your funds to send the excess out, we will apply the usual fees.
If you don't have an external account set up and you still have excess funds at the end of each day, we’ll have to restrict your account to remain compliant. You won't be able to deposit and receive funds into your account.
You can check if you have an external account set up with Wise by going to My Account > Recipients and selecting the account. If it's set up correctly, it'll say “This is your external account.”
How do I set up an external account?
Log in to the Wise website (this won’t work on the app)
Go to Recipients
Add or select the bank account you want to mark as your external account
This account can be in another currency besides MYR, as long as it's under your ownership — but it cannot be your own Wise Account. Once you've set an external account, you can't change it back or delete it until you've selected a new external account.
My account is restricted
If you weren't able to withdraw your excess funds on time, we'll restrict your Wise account and you won't be able to deposit and receive funds into your account.
If this has happened, please set up your external account so that your excess funds will be automatically transferred out. Alternatively, you may manually transfer the excess funds out by sending out the money from your balance.
Once your excess funds are transferred out, your account restrictions will be lifted.
When your account restrictions are lifted, please remember to manually re-activate your account details so that you can continue receiving incoming payments.