Does TW have a banking license? I seem to recall they don't, so your money wouldn't be insured in the same way, or something like that.

If TransferWise were to fail, you would not be entitled to compensation (up to £85,000) from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) — this is a scheme that banks and building societies authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority sign up to and fund.

TransferWise is only registered with the Prudential Regulation Authority as an e-money service authorised to provide payment services. You can search the register at https://register.fca.org.uk.

In reality, they appear to hold the funds with Barclays so if TransferWise failed, you'd get the funds back. It's only if Barclays themselves became insolvent that you'd be out of pocket since you wouldn't be covered by the FSCS.

True - I don't think so. There are regulatory assurances that they ringfence the money and you should be able to get it all back should they go under, but yeah I would be wary of using them as the only place to keep my money or substantial sums. They are super useful for receiving and sending money to/from different countries though, reasonabble fees.

they absolutely are, I've used it for something like 6 or 7 years, and have had almost zero issues. I even paid for my wedding celebrations with transferwise-moved money :)