Wise opened the publicly trading at £800 in London on Wednesday. Credit: Wise.

UK-based payments firm Wise, formerly known as TransferWise, has made its debut on the London Stock Exchange with a valuation of more than £8bn ($11 bn).

The firm, which specialises in cross-border payments, opted to go public via a direct listing rather than an initial public offering (IPO).

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Direct listing allows the company to start trading publicly without issuing new equity shares.

This form of flotation allows shareholders of the company to sell their existing shares to the public, without the usual lockup-period regulations associated with traditional IPOs.

Wise started trading on the stock exchange at £8 per share on Wednesday.

Besides, the company introduced a separate share incentive scheme called OwnWise that allows its customers to purchase stake in the firm.

Wise said that the scheme has been oversubscribed and the 125,000 applicants would be cut down to 100,000 by lottery.

Launched in 2011 by Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Kaarmann, the firm helps people move money across borders and into different currencies more easily and at reduced rates.

In July last year, Wise confirmed a $5bn valuation after raking in $319m through a secondary share sale.

Recently, the firm expanded its footprint to India with the launch of foreign exchange service.

Last month, the London-headquartered firm partnered with Google Pay to allow Google Pay users in the US to send money to users in India and Singapore.

The same month, Wise joined Temenos MarketPlace with the aim of bringing low-cost international remittances to banks worldwide.