Our team, including Suman Anand, Taneia Bhardwaj, Aditi Jalan, and Kanaka Raju Gullapudi is bridging the gap between time zones to build products that impact 16 million+ customers globally 🌎 

Tell us about why we decided to launch in Hyderabad 

Taneia Bhardwaj: Hyderabad sits at a pretty unique intersection: deep technical talent, a thriving fintech ecosystem, and a community that genuinely wants to build things that matter. And that’s exactly why we are here. At Wise, we’re building infrastructure that moves billions across borders, and it has to work every single time. It has to hold up under regulation, at scale, and in real time – because when something goes wrong, it isn’t abstract. It’s someone’s salary that doesn’t arrive, or a student's tuition that doesn’t get paid. 

That level of responsibility requires serious engineering judgment and operational discipline. Hyderabad has that depth and that’s why this city is the right fit for our mission.

What are some interesting tech challenges that we have faced?

Kanaka Raju Gullapudi: One of the most fascinating challenges has been adapting our global platform to India’s unique regulatory financial ecosystem. Requirements such as mandatory video KYC before enabling outbound remittances or issuing cards introduce flows that do not naturally exist in many global markets. These are not surface-level adjustments but deep localisation challenges. They require us to rethink onboarding journeys, verification pipelines, and compliance orchestration in ways that still integrate cleanly with our global platform.

At the same time, regulations around data storage and handling mandates add another layer of complexity. Certain classes of data must remain within India’s borders, which stipulates careful and creative design around data partitioning, storage strategies, access controls, and cross-region communication. The challenge is not just meeting these requirements in isolation, but doing so without fragmenting the global system and leveraging its strength. .

What makes this particularly interesting is that we cannot build isolated, market-specific in silos. We have to extend and evolve the core platform so it can support these regulatory nuances while remaining unified, scalable, and resilient across currencies and regions.

We talk about being ‘mission-driven’ at Wise. How does this show up in your day-to-day?

This takes shape in many different ways. 

One way to do this is through the physical Wise card. We keep costs low by working with local manufacturers so that the card is shipped domestically (ie., keeping the printing but also delivery costs as low as possible). Another way we support the mission is by investing in the infrastructure to be able to keep foreign exchange (FX) costs low so our customers do not pay high markups when they use the card abroad. We continue to do this, not just for our Indian customers, but across the globe in all the countries we operate in. 

Suman Anand: In Engineering, we aren’t just seen as ‘ticket-takers’, we are product owners. Being mission-driven means we’re obsessed with Mission Zero– our long-term commitment to eventually making international money transfers completely free. In our day-to-day, this means every line of code is evaluated for efficiency. If we can optimise a process to save $1, that’s $1 we can pass back to our customers. We’re constantly challenging the 'standard' way of doing things to find faster, cheaper, and more transparent paths for moving money.

Can you share a feature built for India that has already impacted our customers’ experience?

Kanaka Raju Gullapudi: Our Hyderabad team has built the r.INR infrastructure, a game-changer that allows Indian exporters and freelancers to receive international payments as easily as local ones. By providing local account details in currencies like USD, GBP, and EUR, we’ve eliminated expensive wire transfers and complex SWIFT details. We handle the conversion at mid-market rates and deposit INR directly into Indian bank accounts with automated eFIRC documentation (official proof of payment in foreign currency) for seamless compliance. This isn’t just moving money; it’s building the strategic infrastructure that empowers Indian businesses to compete and scale globally.