What to Do If Your Usual Provider Is Down or Unavailable

Have a second option in mind before you need one

Relying on a single provider works fine until the one time it doesn't. Keeping a backup set up — even one you rarely use — means an outage costs you a few minutes of switching, not a stalled emergency. If your primary is Wise, having Remitly or Botim already set up covers you.

If it's a genuine emergency, go physical

Digital outages don't affect a branch visit. Al Ansari's 230+ physical locations are a reliable fallback precisely because they don't depend on the same infrastructure an app outage would affect.

Check if it's actually down, or just you

Before assuming a full outage, check the app's own status page if it has one, or a quick search for other users reporting the same issue — sometimes it's a local connectivity problem, not the provider itself, and switching providers wouldn't have fixed that anyway.

Your bank as the ultimate fallback

If every dedicated app and exchange house option is somehow unavailable, Emirates NBD or Mashreq remain functional through standard banking channels — not the cheapest option day to day, but a genuine last resort that doesn't depend on the same third-party infrastructure.

Build this before you need it

The two minutes it takes to set up a second provider's account today is worth it the one time your primary genuinely isn't available when you need it most.

See also: sending money for a medical emergency · all 6 providers compared