Navan, the Nasdaq-listed business travel and expense platform, said on 10 November 2026 that Wise, the London-listed cross-border payments company, has selected it to manage its business travel programme, citing wider fare choice, cost savings and clearer reporting. Fintechbits’ archive shows Navan plugged Engine’s hotel inventory into its platform on 8 September 2026 through Engine’s Omni API, so the wider fare and hotel choice Wise cites in the Wise Navan deal rests partly on content Navan added in September, two months before the deal. Navan says nearly 1,500 financial institutions use it, including Visa, Block and Investec.

What Wise gets from Navan

According to the Navan release, the expected benefits are a wider range of airfares for long-haul trips, cost savings through competitive fares, negotiated hotel rates and booking tools, and real-time cost-centre data, traveller tracking and carbon reporting.

Hanro Hennig, Wise’s vice president for global real estate, workplace and risk, said: “Our teams travel across the world to work together and support our customers, so it’s important that booking and managing travel is straightforward.”

Zahir Abdelouhab, Navan’s senior vice president for enterprise sales in EMEA, said Navan will help Wise “cut down on manual reporting” and see where there is room to save.

Navan’s September deal with Engine added live availability across hotel chains and independents and better handling of group bookings and extended stays, the kind of trips a distributed company like Wise often needs.

Wise has offices across Europe, Asia Pacific and the Americas, so a single global booking and reporting tool helps its finance team see travel spend by team and location.

Where Wise and Navan overlap

Navan is not only a travel company. It also sells corporate cards and expense management, competing with Ramp, Brex and others whose growth Fintechbits has tracked, including Ramp’s $60 billion valuation. Wise sells business accounts and cards too, mainly for cross-border payments.

The release covers travel only. It does not say whether Wise will use Navan’s expense or card products, and Wise would have obvious reasons to keep its own payments in-house.

Fintechbits analysis

Why the Wise Navan Deal Is a Reference Win More Than a Big One

The Wise Navan deal is valuable to Navan mainly as a name. A well-known fintech choosing Navan helps it sell to other financial firms, a segment where it already claims nearly 1,500 customers. Travel spend at a company of Wise’s size is meaningful but not decisive for Navan’s revenue.

For Wise, the Wise Navan choice is ordinary procurement: one tool, better reporting, better rates. The interesting angle is what it leaves out. Navan’s growth strategy relies on selling cards and expense tools alongside travel. Wise, a payments company with its own business card, is unlikely to route employee spending through a competitor’s card.

That tension, visible in the Wise Navan deal, will recur as travel platforms push into payments. Large financial customers may buy the booking tool and keep the money movement for themselves.

There is also a reverse opportunity. Wise sells multi-currency accounts and cards to businesses, and companies with travelling staff are natural customers. Navan’s own customers pay suppliers and employees in many currencies. Neither release mentions any commercial tie beyond travel, but the overlap means the two firms may end up as partners, competitors or both.

For other fintech finance teams, the deal is a reminder that operating spend at fast-growing payments firms is shifting to software platforms with real-time reporting. Travel, a large and messy cost line, is usually first.

Frequently asked questions

What did Wise and Navan announce?

Navan said on 10 November 2026 that Wise has selected it to manage Wise’s business travel programme, for wider fare choice, cost savings and clearer reporting.

How many financial institutions use Navan?

Navan says nearly 1,500 financial institutions worldwide are customers, including Visa, Block and Investec.

Will Wise use Navan cards or expense tools?

The release covers business travel only and does not say whether Wise will use Navan’s card or expense products.

What to Watch Next

The detail to watch is whether the Wise Navan relationship grows beyond travel booking into expenses. If Wise keeps its own card while using Navan for travel, it will show how far travel platforms can push payments into customers that are themselves payments companies.