About Wise

We have introduced Wise on our site before. Wise’s core business focuses on international money transfers. Another major feature of Wise is that it supports both personal and business accounts, and lets users open local virtual bank accounts in multiple countries, with an account number, routing number (routing number), and SWIFT code for local incoming payments.

For Wise account opening, check:

Today we’ll explain how to use Wise’s Transfer feature to handle one of the most painful Direct Deposit requirements in many bank account-opening bonus programs. Because Wise is available worldwide, you can register with U.S. details and address in the U.S., and Chinese details in China, with the same end result. For people who are not in the U.S., Wise is often the easiest way to complete Direct Deposit. Opening Wise also doesn’t require credit history and does not affect a chex score; you only need to fill in basic information, so it is still very convenient.

The content and screenshots below were referenced from our Knowledge Planet article. If you’re interested, join the group and check it out together:

About Direct Deposit

When opening various bank accounts and claiming bonus incentives, we often run into DD (Direct Deposit, direct deposit) requirements. What do you do if your salary is too small, you can’t freely switch accounts, or you are a cloud resident? This is when there is a need for fake DD. Doctor of Credit’s documentation lists several cases where banks misclassify ACH transfers as DD, but much of that content is somewhat outdated.

Most commonly used fake DD methods right now are still tied to a couple of major brokerage-style options (also relatively practical choices). Here we share one widely spread fake DD method—Wise. Wise is mainly for exchanging currency, but that does not stop us from taking a workaround approach.

How to Use Wise for DD

Steps: after opening a Wise USD receiving account, choose send to someone else, and enter 'Payroll' in the transfer reference field. When the bank system detects this keyword, it is very likely to treat it as payroll disbursement, which can satisfy DD.
Compared with other methods, Wise has one advantage: if you have a CAD account and need DD for account-opening rewards, this method works similarly.

Specific steps:

  • First, add a currency to your Wise account so you can receive same-name top-ups for verification. On the home page, click 'add another currency to your account.'
  • Choose balance
  • Next, pick a currency and tap that currency. We use HKD as an example here. (Because USD was already selected, the USD-account process is the same.)
  • It will look like this after the currency is added. Since the steps to add a bank account differ by country and currency, we skip those here. Go straight to sending money and tap send.
  • Choose whether to send to an existing person or add a recipient. Here, we choose add a recipient.
  • Select USD (using USD DD as an example) and then enter bank details.
  • Choose someone else. (Here’s a philosophical question: choose myself or someone else? Imagine the bank sees account A receive a $20 payroll credit from A—what would they think? In practice, choosing myself may also be fine.)
  • After entering the bank information, click confirm. You can find the bank details in your own account, or search Google, or ask support.
  • Choose the amount. Note that Wise charges a fee—Wise is not a non-profit, so there is a cost. Click continue.
  • The last step is key: put payroll in the reference field (this is what makes it more likely to be misread as payroll). Click confirm and send.
  • A successful DD transaction usually shows Wise and payroll on the bank transaction record.

Funding Source

The above only covers the transfer steps, but Wise’s funding flow also has some depth (ideas sourced from USCardForum). There are three ways to fund and transfer:

  1. Click Send and set your bank as the source. Wise will pull the money from your bank and send it to the bank where you need DD. Estimated fee: about $15, with roughly one week to complete. (This is the flow shown above.)
  2. Enable a Wise USD balance, pull the needed amount from your bank to your Wise balance on the Wise side (that is, initiate from Wise and move the linked bank funds into Wise), then send from Wise balance to the bank where DD is needed. Total fee is about $12 + $1.5. The first step takes about 4 business days, and the second only a few hours.
  3. Enable a Wise USD balance, initiate an ACH push from your bank side to the Wise balance, then send from the balance to the bank where DD is needed. Fee is only $0 + $1.5. The first step takes as long as your bank’s push speed, while the second step only takes a few hours. If your bank is fast enough, the full process can be done in about half a day. This method is faster and cheaper, and if it fails, it is low risk and can be retried.

The first two are pretty straightforward. Here we’ll cover the third method. Since ACH steps vary by bank, we use BofA as an example. (I saw people online saying Plaid-enabled platforms can search for Wise directly, but when I tried adding it on Chase, I couldn’t find it; no idea why.)

  • Add Wise as an external account from the BofA side.
  • The routing number (routing number) and account number you need come from Wise. You need to deposit $20 to Wise to get this information (equivalent to opening a checking account). Activation link
  • After adding it, initiate a transfer from BofA to Wise.

Banks That Can Use Wise for DD

Banks currently supported for activating DD with Wise (from source) are:

There are many smaller ones; we won’t list them here. You can go to the source page and search for Wise to see the full set.

If regular bank checking-account ACH transfers can already complete DD, then there is no reason to use Wise. For example, the US Bank checking account $450 bonus can be activated directly with Chase ACH transfers, so using Wise is unnecessary.

Wise Business Accounts

What we covered earlier was Wise personal accounts. Wise also has business accounts. I’ve seen many reports online of people using business accounts to complete DD, so if your personal account can’t solve it, you can try a business account.

Sign-Up Link