US payments startup Dwolla now supports wire transfers

Mobile payments startup Dwolla has introduced support for wire transfers to its US-only money transfer service.

It is initially available to a selected number of business customers only, although others can apply. The new addition goes beyond the existing $50 million limitation and allows Dwolla customers to carry out a range of more advanced services, such as employee payroll.

Dwolla says the introduction is the result of customer feedback, and also because — in the style of young startups — “we could do it, so we did.” The company says it will not charge extra for using wire transfers, keeping the cost at a maximum of 25 cents per transaction.

Dwolla offers a service that’s quite similar to PayPal, allowing users to send and receive payments with very low fees. The company raised a $16.5 million series C round led by Andreessen Horowitz in April, which took its total investment to $22.8 million.

Yet, Dwolla is still not focused on expanding its business internationally. Speaking after the closure of the round, the company said the capital will go towards further scaling its operations and services in the US, particularly those aimed at the financial industry.

One of its key focuses is a product called FiSync, which brings real-time payments to financial institutions like banks. FiSync, which Dwolla says has “multitude of financial institutions in various phases,” is one area where it is aggressively hiring new staff to keep up with customer demand.

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