RemitONE Webinar: Future-Proof Your Money Service Business

Future-Proof Your Money Service Business: Tech-Driven Solutions to Cut Costs, Boost Transactions, and Drive Growth, Tuesday 8th April at 15:00 GMT.

In today’s challenging remittance landscape, rising operational costs and declining transaction volumes are putting pressure on Money Service Businesses like never before. Staying ahead requires smart, technology-driven strategies—and this webinar will show you how.

Join us as we uncover practical solutions that will empower your business to reduce costs, increase transaction volumes, and maintain a competitive edge:

Connect and Scale Effortlessly: Leverage RemitONE’s connections to integrate seamlessly with your supply chain members and partners.
Expand Into New Markets: Access new corridors from the UK and Europe with plug-and-play solutions like Remittances as a Service (RaaS), without the need for a license or bank account.
Boost Security and Speed: Harness the power of open banking for faster, cheaper and more secure transactions.
Enhance Compliance and Risk Management: Adopt liveness checks to streamline compliance, mitigate fraud risks, and ensure regulatory adherence.
Future-Proof Your Business: Explore blockchain, stablecoins and other digital innovations designed to increase efficiency.

Don’t miss this opportunity to gain practical insights that can help your Money Service Business. Spaces are limited, so register today to avoid disappointment. Register here – https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/93c0ed25-77aa-4b24-a749-ab16b888b23b@36d5614f-f651-4945-9632-7053acdae73a

Video: New Tech in an Old Business – The new products redefining the best in class.

Continuing our recent discussions exploring some of the challenges and opportunities being faced by the remittance sector in these uncertain times, RemitONE hosted a webinar on the 23rd of June 2021 regarding the new products that are currently redefining best in class practices and the technology that drives them. The panel was made up of experts from both RemitONE and our friends and partners in other global companies. In case you missed the webinar, here is a summary of the key insights.

Webinar moderator:

Oussama Kseibati, Head of Services at RemitONE

Panellists:

Walter D’Cruz, Director at Moneo Solutions and CEO at Livil Ltd
Stone Atwine, Founder at CEO at Eversend
Nelson Irizarry, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Paykii

What new technological advancements are now being utilised in the traditional remittance industry?

Walter: I was really looking forward to answering this one because I believe a lot of technological advancement is being driven by external forces like the regulators, banking partners and the market. For me, it’s about who adopts the technology faster and the technology I’m talking about specifically is regulatory technology like ID verification, KYC transaction monitoring, open banking, instant payments, digital payments, digital banking, artificial intelligence and, of course, blockchain. For me, those are the main drivers. The challenges companies are facing, however, largely stem from the ever-evolving beast that is compliance and the costs associated with it. A lot of fin-techs out there are reducing that cost whilst providing excellent services and as we move through this new environment, traditional remittance companies are going to have to play a big game of catch-up.

We know that regulation and fraud are the biggest challenges in the industry. What new tech is out there to overcome these challenges?

Stone: Regulation is a big pain, especially for those of us trying to upgrade across multiple countries on the African continent. Being a new-age player, we tried to do everything electronically and what we’ve seen in the software we use for everything from onboarding and compliance to KYC and anti-money laundering is that there are some major advantages the traditional players might not have noticed. For example, it helps us with integration and analytics so you can figure out if you’ve got 30 thousand or 50 thousand customers and how many of those customers did KYCs. In terms of fraud, we’re seeing many interesting solutions too. We’ve built a tonne of fields internally in Eversend alongside a new technology that allows you to spot potential fraudsters from their email address, phone number or even the gadget they’re using across different applications. I think the thing that really changes the game though is the ability to do all the required KYC diligence remotely without actually being close to the customer. We’ve seen improvements in liveness checks, for example, so that when somebody signs up on their telephone you can take a short video selfie and the technology now can figure out if this person is who they say they are.

Oussama: It’s also about customer experience; the better we have these solutions in place, the quicker it is for you to onboard someone not needing to be there. So they are on their mobile phone and take their picture and all the checks are done instantly so you can onboard them right there and then.

What have traditional remittance companies had to do differently as a result of this new technology?

Walter: You can’t replace a physical asset like cash; you have to go through to the digital world which offers a simple way of banking and topping it up with cash. Look at some of the challenger banks like OneZone where you can top up to £300 or £500 a month in cash. You go to a top-up agent, put your money in and it’s in your account within minutes. The cash economy is working right now still because there are older generations looking at crypto and digital currencies right now the way generations before looked at credit cards – with nothing but disbelief and trepidation. But there will come a time when cards are replaced by instant payment and there needs to be a roadmap in place to help these customers understand the new normal.

How do you see the utility bills payment sector in relationship with the MSB space, post-pandemic?

Nelson: Everyone has bills to pay. You’re talking about 40 billion payments a year based on households around the world and that’s just looking at basic utility services. Anywhere between 20% to 30% of funds that are being sent by remittance are being used specifically for bill payment services. I think the question we have to ask is who’s going to pay for it? Is it the sender or the recipient? From PayKii’s perspective, we actually play both sides of it. Our platform is a global digital platform with one API integration and we offer both domestic and cross border services in over 30 countries. But cross border bill payment is really our bread and butter. Because people want the ability to pay bills directly back home, either for control, security or peace of mind. There are three key challenges with bill paying in a cross-border context. The first one is awareness as most individuals do not know they can pay bills back in their home countries for themselves or for their loved ones. The second is commitment, which involves getting them to understand what is the value or bill payment by creating a more holistic view of managing the customer. The third challenge is regulatory fees but it’s slightly different from the regulatory challenge you’ll face in the money transfer world due to how different countries regulate bill payments.

Do you consider that the new adoption of technologies like blockchain may play a major role in both regions or are they typically regional focused?

Walter: I think they are going to be very regionally focused. If you look at Africa, there are certain countries where there’s been significant adoption of crypto often relating to their existing currency. In Nigeria, for example, example, there’s been 80% adoption. So it’s not about boiling the ocean here we have to really focus on corridors and where there’s a supporting regulatory framework. As far as blockchain is concerned, I think blockchain means so many different things to so many people and it’s often misinterpreted or misrepresented. For me the application of blockchain is not just about the value of an asset or funds; it is a complete 3D picture that you can build around a transaction.

Do you think that Cryptocurrencies can be a solution to solve settlement problems for intra-Africa cross-border remittances?

Stone: At Eversend we’re already using stable coins to move value across different studios based in different African countries. You really need to move values pretty quickly, especially if you aren’t going to have tens of millions tucked away in capital across different markets. We’re doing this internally though, so the customer doesn’t actually see anything to do with crypto or stable coins but we use them amongst ourselves to make sure that everything balances out in different countries. For these solutions to work we need modern systems as with old systems you’d have to use US transfer, which would take 3 to 5 days. That means we can reduce the amount of capital we need just by using this almost instant system of stable coins. I see the future of remittances going into stable coins, at least in the short term.

Customer loyalty can be a challenge in the remittance space. What new products and technologies should MSB’s consider to strengthen their relationship with the end-user?

Nelson: I’m not an expert in remittance space and I certainly can’t predict the future but what I will say is that where before you tended to have a lot of companies that were specifically focused on remittance, over the past few years fintechs have broadened everyone’s horizons. They have forced everyone to look at remittances in a slightly different way. So, the question is, what can dedicated remittance companies do to retain customers when the dynamics of the industry have changed so much and so rapidly? I think the first thing is to look at the customer holistically and ask how you can best manage that person’s financial health. Beyond helping them send money home, what else of value can you provide to help them manage their financial health?

Stone: We’re doing a lot of things internally around retention and one of those things comes back to little everyday payments. The idea is that to keep people coming back you give them the ability to quickly buy something like phone credit and bundle that in with a lot of other relevant financial services, giving them more value and more reason to stay. We also have a measure we call the “care factor” and this is essentially a measurement of the virility of our app through people telling their friends about Eversend. We try to ensure that every user is going to lead us to at least one other new user and this is done with the incentive of referral rewards so the inviter and the invitee both get a small amount of money when the invited person becomes a paying customer. We’re essentially giving our marketing budget directly to our consumers and it seems to be working.

We also know that bank de-risking is a major challenge for many businesses. What technological innovations exist to overcome this challenge?

Walter: You can’t really overcome the challenge of having a physical connection to a bank. No tech can achieve that. However, regulatory technology can de-risk your relationship with the bank by staying ahead of the game. Unfortunately, you’re never going to avoid de-risking until money businesses fully get behind PSD2, which for some reason they still seem quite reluctant to do. All you can really do is manage your volumes and cultivate banking relationships specific to the vertical markets you are going to operate in. Because certain banks will have the systems in place to focus on a certain corridor, whereas other general banks may not. The major challenge for banks is that they are typically rendered moribund by legacy systems – old IBM apps that they developed in the 70’s and 80’s that are still running some of their core business applications. So for them to adopt newer technology is very difficult because it doesn’t fit into their workflow. That’s where fintechs comes into the equation because we know what we’re doing with new technology. The problem, however, is that fintechs lack the trust of established banks and this is something that’s going to require greater collaboration. Until that happens, de-risking is just going to be a matter of doubling up, or tripling up, or spending a lot more effort in managing your relationships. But certainly being ahead of the game in terms of compliance and KYC gives you a big advantage.

We have seen the rise of everything from blockchain to instant payments and mobile money in recent years. But what changes are we going to experience in the next five or ten years?

Stone: What I see as the future of remittances and finance as a whole is some kind of central location from which somebody can get all of their financial service needs met. So if you’re sitting in a cafe in Paris and have to pay your grandmother’s electricity bill in Uganda, the platform that you use should be the same platform from which you pay your Amazon or Netflix bill. What we are seeing is that amalgamation of financial services I think that’s really going to be the future – all in one, borderless apps. You want to be able to offer more than just remittances, you want an app somebody can use to trade stocks and crypto and send money back home. The more touchpoints, the better!

Do you think the current regulatory frameworks welcome or stifle new technological innovations in the industry?

Nelson: Part of the issue is that regulators have bigger fish to fry and they rarely make the rules of the game clear, so to speak. So it poses a challenge for us depending on where the client is located and operating. Bill paying is a small ticket item that I think most regulators just haven’t thought about, which leaves us specifically in a rare position where we can move ahead but we have to do so cautiously as we can never be 100% sure if or when the regulators will suddenly decide we’re a concern. When you want to make sure you are crossing your t’s and dotting your i’s, it’s hard when that’s not the primary focus of the regulators themselves. But I guess that allows wiggle room for playing around, testing boundaries and seeing what works. And as always, working with consultants who are very good in the remittance space can make sure you understand the stadium that you’re playing in, if not the game itself.

Walter: It honestly depends on where you are as there’s no such thing as consistency. You’ve all no doubt seen the recent events in China and the impact that has had on the price of crypto. The biggest impact on the market in terms of innovation is going to be the introduction of central bank digital currencies because in a way that’s going to really legitimise their use. Then of course you have open banking, which is definitely going to happen on a wider scale. I think the advent of digital currencies will push open banking. They go hand in hand, after all.

What next?

Now that you’ve read our article we want to help you get the most out of it and deep dive into the trends and predictions shared.

Tap into our experts and schedule a free consultation.

Video: Remittances in Africa – Market trends, regulation, challenges and opportunities

2020 was far from a banner year for many industries. But it is a year in which the remittance sector revealed itself to be defiantly resilient. The world bank projected a 20% fall in global remittance at the very start of the pandemic but by October they’d revised that figure to just a 7% drop, to be followed by another 7% drop this year (2021). This initially predicted fall was, by all accounts, supposed to have a particularly significant impact in Africa where migrant workers send around £11 billion per year.

RemitONE Associate Sales Director Oussama Kseibati feels that these are figures we always needed to take with a pinch of salt, not only because Africa is a region that is often underestimated on an economical level but because many countries there still lack the capability to capture data accurately. He adds: “Africa is also still a region where physical transfers are more common and it is harder to track physical transfers. That’s why these figures should be seen less as empirically accurate projections and more as rogue guidelines to give us a feel for how the market might be moving.”

To delve deeper into the current climate in Africa, Oussama recently hosted a webinar attended by four esteemed panellists with expert knowledge of the regional remittance landscape. Muhammad M. Jagana, CEO of Kuringo, Sidharth Gautam, Head of Sales at AZA Finance, Leon Issacs, CEO of DMA Global and Linus Adaba, Head of Group Remittance Distribution at Ecobank lent us their thoughts and feelings on the trends, regulations, challenges and opportunities facing Africa in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To see the Q&A answers from our panellists click here.

Was 2020 as bad as expected?

If we’ve learned anything in the last 12 months, it’s that there’s always a risk in sticking your neck out for figures and projections. Nobody wants to die on that hill. In Africa, however, remittance continued to grow and thrive regardless of the pandemic and the World Bank’s scaremongering. Indeed, remittance was actually up by as much as 75% in the Gambia and 50% in Zimbabwe and even in developed countries such as Kenya, Morocco and Egypt, there were gains of around 12%.

Leon explains: “We’ve been hearing hundreds of positive stories of volumes from remittances across the region and we can only assume that’s because the migrants sending money home have a greater need to do so right now when we’re in the midst of a global crisis.”

Another key factor is the impact of the crisis on the informal market. Travel is particularly difficult right now and that means that many of the informal operators that were relying on physically moving cash just closed down after the pandemic forced travel to a standstill. The physical barriers put up between South Africa and Zimbabwe, for example, mean people were forced into using formal, regulated channels.

Leon adds: “Of course, there is also the major impact of digital to take into account, which makes it easier for people to transfer money and Africa has been dipping its toes into that particularly reservoir for a while now.”

How did Intra Africa remittances grow in 2020?

Linus feels that the remittance industry is a resilient one that tends to thrive in moments of crisis, so he’s not surprised it defied the World Bank projection. He explains: “Africans don’t forget home and they are very family-focused. That’s why I feel the African market grew so substantially in 2020. COVID provided a situation where, more than ever, people were willing to send money home.”

Where a partner has had a relationship with any other partner within the continent that allows transactions to happen between bank accounts or mobile wallets, that’s helped business for MTOs. More importantly, the government’s of most African countries saw remittances as COVID palliative. So they were quite willing to help facilitate these Intra African payments and even, in some cases, dedicated certain hours where people could queue and collect physical remittances while keeping safe and socially distanced.

Linus adds: “Some other countries like Kenya, for example, also increased the potential amount of each transaction per person. This not only meant less physical contact but it also meant that people were able to move more money more quickly between countries.” When you also factor in the various economic rules in place in various regions within Africa that allow for freedom of movement, it’s easy to see why Intra African remittances have been allowed to flourish.

As far as what needs to be done to boost the market, Leon adds: “To put it into context, the World Bank once estimated that for every $3 circulating within Africa, $2 originated within the continent. Most people look at Africa as one country rather than 55 and as somewhere that’s dependant on remittances from the rest of the world, but that’s not really the case.” He does believe, however, that there needs to be a regulatory shift in many countries to allow for easier transfer of money and this means allowing for different types of entities to operate alongside more traditional or formal channels.

How is technology going to help?

Currently, the cost of sending remittance to Africa is the highest rate in the world at around 9%. That’s around 5 times more costly than almost anywhere else and according to Oussama, the reason for this is simply because of the heavier reliance on cash payouts. Sidharth agrees, explaining: “For cash, you need so much more logistical support in terms of manpower, not to mention the actual physical locations. So technology is hopefully, in the long term, going to mean these costs reduce quite substantially, perhaps more in line with Southeast Asia where the rate is only around 2%.”

Leon believes that Africa is a hotbed for technology right now but that governments need to get involved on a deeper level to facilitate a safe space for transfers to happen between channels. This is something Mohammed also touches on, explaining that one of the problems is: “How many different currencies there are in Africa, which leads to issues with exchange rates.” He feels that a “single African currency” would be the most logical move. He adds: “We have 35 currencies in Africa and that’s always going to complicate remittances. The end user should not have to worry about exchange rates.”

This leads us quite neatly into the question of cryptocurrency. Sidharth has seen it being adopted in a big way through AZA’s separate crypto product, exploding from around $6,000 to $56,000 in just the last 2 quarters. He adds: “As regulations loosen up and mobile tech continues to build it will be more widely accepted as a means of payment, certainly within the next five years.”

Mohammed, meanwhile, feels adoption might be a little slower, mentioning that Nigeria recently stopped all crypto payments for B2B transactions. Leon, however, feels that it could become a big part of the solution in years to come but right now “people in Africa don’t have a good understanding of cryptocurrency yet.” That’s not to say they won’t in the future though and Oussama is hopeful that with time, that understanding will come. He believes that “a lot of end users right now are not using cryptocurrency as remittance but as more of an asset that will increase in value.” Education will undoubtedly play a major role in that regard.

How have the central bank measures promoting remittance impacted operations in Africa?

The regulation that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued in December last year was designed to boost US dollar supply into the economy and simplify remittances by ensuring the beneficiary always collects the money in dollars. Linus explains: “70% to 80% of remittances to Nigeria in the last two years have been to bank accounts because of the instant delivery the banks offer.” So, the central bank changing the currency from Nigerian Naira to Dollar makes a lot of sense but Linus stresses it’s not necessarily a Nigerian “dollarisation.” What the central bank is doing, he argues, is simply allowing the individual to negotiate rates themselves and trying to unify the exchange rate because they “can see how remittances can be used to help aid development.”

Sidharth agrees though he says that AZA is always going to be a firm that promotes local currencies. He feels the regulation is going to provide a major challenge for the Naira even though he thinks it will be good for remittance and things will improve in the long term. Leon, meanwhile, explains that DMA is currently “working with the British government to try and understand the impact on the UK to Nigeria remittance corridor and how it has impacted both the senders and receivers.”

Right now he says it’s been a bit of a mixed bag, with some saying the measures have led to an increase in remittance and others saying it’s led to a decline and some of that’s due to the fact there was no notice given to some of the operators.

Oussama adds that it’s all part of a broad approach by CBN to try and manage the different exchange rates and the parallel market that exists in Nigeria where the exchange rate could be as much as 20% different to the official rate because the Naira isn’t floating. Over time there will almost certainly be tweaks made to the policy that will fit into the much broader range of initiatives but in the short term, the CBN are at least now very much in a dialogue with the operators. If this continues then hopefully it won’t go the way of Zimbabwe a few years ago, where they had to essentially dollarise the whole economy because of rampant inflation and overvalued local currency.

Resilience of Remittance

Generally speaking, the future looks bright for the African remittance sector as long as local governments and banks are willing to invest in regulatory change and incentivise a shift towards digital payments. There are definitely a few significant challenges to overcome in terms of financial inclusion and KYC but advancement in technology is a perfect solution and Africa is by no means on the back foot as far as technology is concerned.

To read more on what our panellists have to say regarding the more specific challenges facing mobile adoption in the region, click here for our companion piece or check out the full webinar here. If you are a money service business interested in expanding into the region, meanwhile, RemitONE is an award-winning provider of MSB technology.

If you need support with all your operational needs please contact us by emailing marketing@remitone.com to see how we can support you.

Panel Q&A

Q1. Can you provide an overview of the licensing regime in Africa? What licences do PSPs and Telcoms need to be able to conduct intra-Africa and international payments?

Muhammad: I believe this is one area that African governments can use to unleash huge opportunities to elevate disruptions in this domain which can help propel ‘The last Mile of the Financial Inclusion Journey’. The challenge in most African countries is that most GSM/Telcos are so flushed with cash (capital) compared to new FinTech companies that sometimes the offerings from these big operators are difficult to match.

Also, because of legacy infrastructures (Anglophone, Francophone, different currencies, FX regulations) it makes it impossible to effectively promote intra-African remittances, and scale to the potentials that are there. For example, Kuringo was in discussions with a potential partner in Ghana to explore the GM/GH corridor. We faced several bottlenecks, such as both our currencies (Dalasi/Cedi) are not convertible and we opted to use USD. Then our partners required waivers from the Central Bank of Ghana because in order to settle us in the US they have to fulfil FX control restrictions. In the end we abandoned the project because of complicated regulatory issues.

Q2. How do the panellists evaluate intra-Africa transactions vis-a-vis AcFTA which was launched in January 2021?

Linus: It is a good initiative that is more than overdue. It will facilitate big ticket payments of goods and services. Major countries in Africa have executed the treaty which shows political will to make it a success.

Muhammad: Huge potential if only there could be a single digital currency that could be used to settle intra-Africa trade, hence mitigating exchange losses. With over 35 currencies used across Africa, SME who are the backbones of most economies would be able to fully benefit from AcFTA.

Q3. With regards to AML/CFT and remittances, is Africa a significant corridor and has the pandemic accelerated this; what new typologies have emerged in this past year?

Linus: Regarding AML/CFT Africa is certainly a significant corridor. AML/CFT has always been a concern for regulators which each remittance scheme is expected to put in place before the advent of Covid-19.

Q4. Have you seen an increase in remittance/FinTech partnerships since 2020 and is Ecobank looking at new ways to partner international players to increase value added services into Africa?

Linus: Yes certainly.

Q5. Do you believe central banks are likely to open up in the ways others have regarding Cryptocurrency? E.g. CBDCs?

Leon: Over time they will, but it’s unlikely to be in the near future.

Sidharth: Medium to long term, Crypto will gain momentum in Africa due to the high cost of sending remittances and over-relying on cash in the continent. But this has its own challenges like central banks, regulations and onramp/offramp from local currencies.

Q6. Inoperability is a big issue with Telcos in Africa, to boost remittances even within the same country. Is it a regulatory, technology or lack of will issue?

Linus: Interoperability required a clearing house to succeed. Some aggregators can offer this service, but there is need for a clearing framework within the region or country by the regulator to make this effective. Telcos are beginning to find ways on how to cooperate in this respect, but candidly the services on an impartial arbiter are required.

Leon: Completely agree. Most Telcos don’t want to cooperate, similiar to how MTOs were 15 years ago. Regulators need to get involved to make it happen.

Sidharth: Except Nigeria, where there is some sort of interoperability/common rails due to Interswitch, this is still a distant task and much is needed to make this happen. CBs/regulators have to play a pivotal role in making this happen both for bringing down the cost and making remittances happen real-time across the continent.

Q7. What are your views on Telcos doing some banking functions, given that Telcos have huge subscribers etc? Are banks not concerned about this for the future, as they appear to be doing banking work and revenues may dwindle for banks?

Linus: Telcos are assisting to expand financial includion and deploring affordable technologies or infrastructures where the banks cannot venture becayse of a typical bank operating model. I see collaboration between Telcos and banks rather than competition. Each part has assets to offer in the financial inclusion narrative.

Leon: Exactly right. Telcos will be the distribution channel and banks the service provider – these will be white-label product providers.

Q8. Do you think the new regulations in Nigeria are against African money transfer companies who are sendig from Africa to Nigeria?

Linus: No

Leon: It is not against African MTOs, indeed, it should be helpful to them.

Q9. Regarding one of Leon’s explanations of regulatory frameworks being challenging for intra-African remittances, how does this work with Crypto where there is no regulatory framework in place?

Leon: Great question. Unfortunately, because there is no framework there is no approval to operate these services. The only way around this is to obtain a letter of consent or to use sandboxes. It will take time but is not high priority at the moment for most central banks.

Q10. Do you think that Cryptocurrencies can be a solution to solve settlement problems for intra-Africa cross-border remittances?

Leon: They can help will illiquid currencies or imperfect settlement processes. But they are not an answer for consumers right now unless there are ways for people to exchange Crypto for local currency.

Q11. Will the change to USD in Nigeria have much impact especially slowing the black market traders? And what is the impact of this Naira to USD change?

Linus: There will be impact. More awareness on the current changes in remittance payout in Nigeria may change this. The beneficiary of the remittance is involved in the Naira value for the Dollar received which is determined by market forces rather than policy fiat.

Q12. Why do African Money Transfer players not want to play outside of Africa and directly service the African diaspora?

Linus: RapidTransfer, for example, is in Europe serving African diaspora. The success of this new addition to the 33 countries where Ecobank is operating in Africa could spur future expansion to other countries where we have diaspora presence.

Q13. Nigeria was implementing two exchange rates concurrently. What are the benefits and challenges of this policy? How can Ethiopia learn from stringent rules and regulations like this?

Linus: Yes, before the switch to USD payout by policy of November 30th 2020, the second official exchange rate is a premium above the first for Naira payout for inbound remittances into Nigeria. It was to reward the Nigeria diaspora to channel their hard-earned money back into the country and to use approved schemes and instruments. Central banks do share experiences, I would advise that tour central bank gets in touch with the Nigerian central bank to compare notes.

Q14. When and where can we obtain Leon’s consumer research?

Leon: Not sure of the exact timing, but we expect this to be around the end of April or early May. We’ll be happy to circulate it.

Q15. Do you think that remittance in our region is at the point that you expected it would be 5 years ago?

Leon: I think it is progressing faster than I would have expected.

Muhammad: The evolution of affordable smart phones and mobiles in general, we have seen a huge growth in the remittances both in the formal an informal market. Today most informal operators (within countries) are using WhatsApp, text message and mobile phone calls to move money within border and across/intra-Africa.

Q16. Regarding the bound on Crypto in Nigeria and the fat that people have to collect USD in place of Naira, what is the advice for a startup?

Linus: Play to the rules and seek partners and banks that share your business vision.

Q17. What are your views on the introduction of individual CBDCs and its effect on intra-Africa remittances and global remittances; what harmonisation is needed to move past the current status quo in terms of exchange rates?

Leon: A good but complex question. They can only be effective if there is much more digitisation in everyday payments in Africa. Ideally an intraregional currency would bring more stability.

Q18. What can be done to help the end users use their money in digital ways, but also have access to cash with more ATM machines?

Muhammad: The Last Mile Solutions for Africa might not be ATMs, but rather small corner/community shops that are dotted all over villages, towns, cities across Africa. How can we onboard them to accept digital payments and give them access to smart POS that would work on mobiles that can be used as withdrawal points (ATM, Payment Centres).

Leon: There needs to be much more digitisation in general life in African countries. This has to happen way before we worry about international payments. Remittances are relevant for payouts but only ride on domestic rails for this.

If you need support with any operational needs, or have further questions, please contact us by emailing marketing@remitone.com to see how we can support you.

R1 Webinar: How money service businesses can maintain growth during a global pandemic

15:00 GMT, Wednesday 25 November 2020

Access the event today at 15:00 GMT here – https://zoom.us/j/97768332874

Join our next webinar where we will review recent challenges Money Service Businesses are facing, impacted by the global pandemic.

We will reveal how RemitONE clients have adapted to these new challenges and in doing so have maintained business growth and ensured compliance:

Maintaining business growth – Challenging for any business impacted by the global pandemic and with the World Bank predicting global remittances will decline by 20% in 2020, it is critical that we all take action to keep money transfers flowing.
We will share how JMMB have maintained business growth. How they have increased transaction volumes, expanded operations and scaled their business.

Ensure compliance– Regulators have become even more stringent and we are seeing growing pressure by central banks to track inbound and outbound transactions.
We will explain how Bank Asia delivers a robust and compliant platform. How they enforce KYC and AML procedures with ease, allowing them reduce costs and focus on other business goals.

Licensing – A three-fold increase in new entrants to the market, judging from the number of MSB applications being submitted to regulators in different regions.
We will reveal how Nation Transfer successfully obtained an SPI licence so they could facilitate cross border payments from the UK via digital channels.

Join our next webinar where we will discuss how we are working with clients to overcome these key challenges and take advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead!

We look forward to seeing you there.

15:00 GMT, Wednesday 25 November 2020.

Access the event today at 15:00 GMT here – https://zoom.us/j/97768332874

About RemitONE

RemitONE is a technology and business services firm that breathes innovation and excellence into the money transfer world for all types and sizes of organisations including banks, money transfer operators, micro-finance institutions, telecom firms and start-ups. Our technology allows you to manage your entire money transfer business and connect with our extensive client and partner network worldwide. Our consulting services have an impressive success rate for money service business license applications and alternative bank account solutions.