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WorldRemit is one of the world’s leaders in the key sector of remittances. Remittances, to cut to the chase, is largely the province of often poor migrant workers sending their money home. To date this has been dominated by large players such as Western Union who can charge fees of 10-20%. Thus we have the obscene sight of some of the poorest people in the world being charged the highest money transfer rates in the world.

Why is this the case?  Is this pure capitalist theft or are there some structural challenges and processes which absorb much of the margin?  What can Fintech do about it?  What is WorldRemit offering that incumbents are not?

In a Fintech/VC world where the media narrative is all too often about terms centred purely on – lets face it greed and flood-up capitalism [hello the “unicorn” word] – it is nice to be able to discuss a firm which is aiming to empower the poorest users of the financial system.

Generally on these shows I take a “vertical” slice and have a CEO of a company to talk about the issue. Nothing wrong and plenty right with that.  In this case though I am taking a more horizontal approach. Alix Murphy, Senior Mobile Analyst, has been in mobile money for many years and shares many stories about mobile transfers in the developing world as well as WorldRemit’s business.

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