Nick Sleep returned 921% over 13 years at Nomad by mastering a single, counter-intuitive concept:

Scale Economies Shared.

To measure it, he invented the "Robustness Ratio" – a tool that calculates exactly how much value a company gives back to its customers relative to what it keeps for shareholders.

Costco $COST famously operates at a ratio of around 5:1 (back when Sleep did his calculations at least).

"At Costco, we think the customer saving is around five dollars, compared to shopping at most supermarkets, for every dollar retained by the company."

But there’s a fintech disruptor that just listed in the US that is weaponizing this exact formula today at an even higher clip; a firm led by @kaarmann that just listed on the NASDAQ last week. In $WISE's NASDAQ listing presentation, we got some fresh numbers, helping me to update the robustness ratio Wise produces.

So let’s update my calculations on Wise ($WISE) from around two years ago (I'll link my post from back then in a comment below).

Back then, in FY23, Wise saved its customers £1.5 billion while retaining £114 million in net income – yielding a jaw-dropping robustness ratio of 13.2.

It was a textbook example of a company aggressively choosing market share and customer goodwill over short-term margin gouging.

How does that "moat" look today? Let's refresh the math using their latest financial disclosures:

✅ Customer Value Proposition (Savings): $3.3 billion

✅ Preliminary FY26 Revenue Estimate: $2.5 billion

✅ Net Income Margin: 18% (based on their H1 FY26 financial profile)

✅ Estimated Net Income: $450 million

Robustness Ratio = $ Retained for Shareholders / Customer Value Proposition (Savings or Benefits)​

So when you divide that $3.3 billion in customer savings by the estimated $450 million in shareholder profit, Wise lands at a current robustness ratio of 7.33.

This decline in the Robustness Ratio isn't a sign of Wise losing its edge – it's the footprint of a business successfully diversifying its empire. Back in FY23, cross-border remittance was Wise's main engine, driving around 70% of total revenue. Today, cross-border has stepped down to 52%, while Interest Income and Card Services have scaled up to command a massive 48% combined share of the mix. Even with these new profit centers lifting shareholder returns, a robustness ratio of 7.33 is an absolute powerhouse. It means that for every $1.00 Wise retains in profit, it still leaves over $7.00 in its users' pockets compared to traditional banks.