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WORLDREMIT www.worldremit.com

WorldRemit

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WorldRemit 路 Global

Finance

DREMIT Revolutionising the Money Transfer Industry

Aspire Africa 路 Nov/Dec 2015

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orldRemit is a global online money transfer service and one of the UK’s leading financial technology firms. As the world’s premier mobile-first money transfer service, the company assists migrants and expats from developing countries working in developed countries in sending money home to their families and friends.

WorldRemit’s CEO and Founder, Ismail Ahmed, started the business in 2010 after experiencing firsthand the challenges in sending money home to Africa while studying for his MBA in London. Prior to WorldRemit, Ismail worked as a Compliance Advisor for the UN East Africa Remittance Programme.

Mobile Money WorldRemit has experienced significant growth in the past few years, as more and more people are coming online to search for better money transfer solutions than the high-street agent models that have typically represented the industry up until now.

For many years, people have suffered from inefficiencies, extortionate fees and a lack of transparency in the money transfer sector.

Remarkably, despite the rapid rise in mobile connectivity across Africa and the developing world, more than 90% of remittances are still sent and received offline, in cash at local agent kiosks.

In an effort to overcome this significant problem, WorldRemit is pioneering mobile-tomobile remittances. With the WorldRemit app, people can send money anytime, anywhere, doing so quickly and at a low cost.

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WorldRemit · Global

Money can be received via bank deposit, cash collection, airtime top-up and, crucially, via Mobile Money, a service rapidly growing in popularity all around the world as a simple alternative to bank accounts.

Mobile Money is an electronic wallet service that lets users send money to another person, buy things in shops or online, pay bills and school fees, and top-up mobile airtime. It works on any type of mobile phone, not just smartphones.

WorldRemit has sought to address the shortcomings of traditional money transfer operators by putting people first, using innovative technology to align the way people send money with the way they communicate from mobile to mobile.

It is this ease of use and the synergy between technology and communication that makes the Mobile Money service so enticing to customers. WorldRemit has made sending money as easy as sending an instant message.

The company’s technology also makes remittances cheaper, enabling customers living in developed nations to send smaller sums of money home more frequently, rather than having to make the most of each money transfer transaction.

In enabling more frequent and flexible engagement of users, and greater integration of Mobile Money services, WorldRemit makes international transfers seamless, to the benefit of both migrants and their families.

Already, after just five years of existence, the majority of transactions on WorldRemit are now sent using a smartphone or tablet, and over 30% of the company’s transfers out of Europe and North America go to a Mobile Money wallet.

WorldRemit has sought to address the shortcomings of traditional money transfer operators by putting people first.

Finance

Ismail Ahmed CEO & Founder WorldRemit

By digitising the process of sending remittances, WorldRemit is addressing the pervasive Know Your Customer (KYC) and compliance challenges in the money transfer industry.

An online model allows for vital technological innovation, such as ID verification, customer scoring and identifying sources of finance several levels deep. At the same time there is increased convenience for both diaspora members and their recipients.

Global Aspirations Since its inception in early 2010, WorldRemit has continued to expand the regions and geographies in which its service is available to customers who want to send money home.

The company has undergone rapid expansion over the past year beyond Europe into new territories, including the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, where Aspire Africa 路 Nov/Dec 2015

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WorldRemit partnered with Econet’s EcoCash mobile wallet in Zimbabwe which led to transaction volumes growing to 20,000 per month within 12 months.

the largest African diaspora communities live, meaning customers can now send money or airtime from more than 50 countries to over 125 around the world.

The company’s move into the United States earlier this year marks its most significant expansion to date. US residents send more than $50 billion annually to friends and family living overseas, making it the world’s largest sender of remittances.

WorldRemit is already connected to more Mobile Money services than any other company in the remittances industry, working closely with major Telecom Groups, including Tigo Millicom, Econet, and MTN, who operate in multiple countries and serve millions of customers across Africa.

Transfers to Mobile Money via WorldRemit now represent over 50% of all of the company’s money transfers going to Africa, demonstrating the life-changing impact the service is having on Africans both at home and in the diaspora.

When WorldRemit partnered with Econet’s EcoCash mobile wallet in Zimbabwe, transaction volumes grew to 20,000 per month within 12 months, swiftly overtaking all other WorldRemit receive options to Zimbabwe.

This same phenomenon is now taking place across many other countries in Africa, including Uganda, Kenya, Somaliland and Tanzania. In Tanzania, over 80% of WorldRemit’s transfers now go to one of three Mobile Money services.

The company’s most recent launches of Mobile Money pay-out offerings include Sri Lanka, the Pacific Islands and Armenia, among many others.

According to the World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa experiences the highest fees and most anti-competitive practices in the world. The Africa Progress Panel called this a “remittance Super Tax” in 2014, but since then little has changed to make remittances affordable and safe for those who most depend on them.

Adapting remittances to an online model helps significantly reduce the costs of sending money internationally, as recipients no longer need to wait days before payments are processed or make long journeys to their nearest city to collect funds.

In years gone by it was not unheard of for a customer to experience having to spend as much as $20 to collect as little as $100 when using traditional money transfer services.

Thanks to Mobile Money, such costs are no longer necessary.

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WorldRemit · Global

Catherine Wines COO, WorldRemit

Finance

WorldRemit Customer Service

The Future of Money Transfer WorldRemit believes that Mobile Money is a key driver for financial inclusion. There are currently 2 billion ‘unbanked’ people in the world, with at least half of this number having access to a mobile phone.

For many people, a mobile phone will offer the only means of accessing financial services.

The World Bank reported in 2014 that Mobile Money has helped to increase financial inclusion across the developing world, especially in East Africa.

In countries like Kenya and Tanzania, over 40% of the adult population are active users of Mobile Money, and in these countries the service is already more prevalent than the use of bank accounts.

Enabling remittance payments to the world’s ‘unbanked’ via Mobile Money fills an important humanitarian need and is having a huge impact on the daily lives of Africans.

With minimum fees of just £0.95, mobileto-mobile remittances enable users to send smaller amounts more often, and recipients have the comfort of knowing their funds are safe and accessible at any time of day or night.

The World Bank estimates that lowering the costs of remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa could save Africans over $2 billion every year.

WorldRemit’s service is helping to reduce costs in the industry while providing safer, quicker money transfers.

Until recently, it was impossible to send remittances internationally to Mobile Money wallets. The majority of Mobile Money deployments had no underlying infrastructure for money transfers internationally across continents.

WorldRemit connects these disparate systems, enabling seamless money transfers from abroad directly into Mobile Money wallets. In this way, the company is excited to bring an important source of business to its partners.

Aspire Africa · Nov/Dec 2015

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www.worldremit.com

The GSMA noted that the average international remittance transaction to a Mobile Money wallet is three to four times the size of the average local Mobile Money transaction, and that international remittances are now the fastest growing service offering for Mobile Money providers.

International Recognition WorldRemit has been the proud winner of many international awards over the past five years, having made a significant impact on the money transfer industry since its beginnings.

In this respect, WorldRemit is excited to continue growing its service and reaching new milestones. The company already facilitates over 300,000 transactions each month, with that number expected to continue growing over the coming years.

Earlier this year the company was honoured by the United Nations IFAD agency with the 2015 private-sector award for Best Practice in Remittances for Development, ahead of fourteen other nominees.

Based on the GSMA’s global estimates for Mobile Money transaction volumes, WorldRemit facilitated 20% of all international remittance transfers to Mobile Money accounts globally in the month of December 2014.

The United Kingdom’s industry body for the financial technology sector, Innovate Finance, named WorldRemit the 2015 FinTech Global Champion, for “pioneering mobile-to-mobile remittances and helping to foster financial inclusion.”

The UK’s African Diaspora Awards named WorldRemit Business of the Year in 2013 for the company’s “positive contribution to the lives of migrants in the United Kingdom.”

In addition to this recognition in the form of awards, WorldRemit has raised $140M in Venture Capital funding from Accel Partners and TCV—early investors in Facebook, Spotify and Dropbox.

WorldRemit is excited to continue expanding its service to offer improved options to its customers. The recent expansion to the US allows the company to serve customers sending to Africa, Asia and Latin America with quick, simple, low cost transfers.

WorldRemit Office

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WorldRemit · Global

The WorldRemit team is likewise looking forward to continuing to build partnerships with banks and Mobile Money services around the world, particularly those that are helping to increase financial inclusion among the world’s ‘unbanked’. ASPIRE

worldremit.com UK office WorldRemit Ltd Kensington Centre 66 Hammersmith Rd London W14 8UD Tel: +44 (0) 207 148 5800 +44 (0) 203 519 8580 Fax: +44 (0) 207 148 6119

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