Wise's ($WSE) Nigeria suspension in 2016 was a perfect example of why third-party dependencies are dangerous.

They were relying on commercial banks to hold local liquidity pools and process transfers. When currency instability hit Nigeria, their banking partners got spooked and cut them off.

Sudden service suspension in one of their biggest remittance corridors. Imagine the angry customers. Imagine the frustration in the C-suite with no immediate control over the situation.

It took them over a year to get back into the market through a new partnership with Flutterwave.

Meanwhile, their US partner PreCash got fined $150,000 for compliance issues related to the Wise relationship.

These incidents crystallized why they needed direct central bank access and their own regulatory licenses everywhere.

It taught management that they can't build a global financial institution on borrowed rails.

So, they built their own!