WorldRemit is a digital cross border remittance business that provides international money transfer and

remittance A remittance is a non-commercial transfer of money by a foreign worker, a member of a diaspora community, or a citizen with familial ties abroad, for household income in their home country or homeland. Money sent home by migrants competes ...

services in more than 130 countries and over 70 currencies. It was founded in 2010 by Ismail Ahmed, Catherine Wines, and Richard Igoe.

History

WorldRemit was founded in 2010 by Ismail Ahmed, a former compliance advisor to the

United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. The UNDP emphasizes on developing local capacity towar ...

. In October 2018, the company announced that they would be bringing in Breon Corcoran as CEO. During his tenure WorldRemit acquired SendWave and Zepz was created as the group business housing both the WorldRemit and SendWave brands and businesses. Breon Corcoran left the organization in August 2022, when Mark Lenhard, former COO of bill.com, was appointed Group CEO of Zepz.

Operations

WorldRemit focuses on cross border remittance money transfers from over 50 countries to over 130 countries around the world. For those receiving money, it offers pay out options including bank deposit, mobile money, mobile airtime top-up and cash pick-up as well as cash delivery. The firm has a network of more than 5,000 corridors. It is connected to

mobile money Mobile payment, also referred to as mobile money, mobile money transfer and mobile wallet, is any of various payment processing services operated under financial regulations and performed from or via a mobile device. Instead of paying with cas ...

services globally, including Zaad (Somaliland/Northern Somalia),

M-Pesa M-PESA (M for mobile, ''PESA'' is Swahili language, Swahili for money) is a mobile banking, mobile phone-based money transfer service, payments and Micro-finance, micro-financing service, launched in 2007 by Vodafone and Safaricom, the largest ...

(Kenya), MTN (Africa and Asia), and bKash (Bangladesh). As of October 2019, it can send funds to 115 different countries; this includes all African countries except for

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

South Sudan South Sudan (), officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the north by Sudan; on the east by Ethiopia; on the south by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kenya; and on the ...

Eswatini Eswatini, formally the Kingdom of Eswatini, also known by its former official names Swaziland and the Kingdom of Swaziland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by South Africa on all sides except the northeast, where i ...

Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...

, and

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

. In 2021 WorldRemit acquired Sendwave, another cross-border digital payments company. In 2020 the two processed 50m transactions and facilitated the sending of over $10bn.

Sanctions for illegal practices with Sendwave app

In 2023 the

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for consumer protection in the financial sector. CFPB's jurisdiction includes banks, credit unions, securities firms, Payday lo ...

found that Chime Inc, a WorldRemit subsidiary which operates Sendwave, had violated the Electronic Fund Transfer Act and the CFPB Remittance Transfer Rule. Some of the specific violations were: * The Sendwave user agreement illegally waived consumer's legal protections regarding liability for losses incurred using the app. * The speed and cost of transfers were misrepresented. The company promised transfers would happen in seconds, but often took much longer. Transfers to Nigeria were not free as promised. * Sendwave failed to disclose correct exchange rates or funds availability. * Sendwave did not have policies and procedures to track and investigate remittance transfer errors, it did not properly investigate errors when it was notified. * Sendwave sometimes did not provide receipts within the time frame required by the Remittance Transfer Rule. In its consent decree Chime was ordered to pay $1.5 million in refunds, fined $1.5 million, and it agreed to change its practices.

Funding

WorldRemit is backed by venture capital companies

Accel Partners Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is a global venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional ope ...

and

Technology Crossover Ventures TCMI, Inc. better known by the name TCV (Technology Crossover Ventures) is an American investment firm based in Menlo Park, California. The firm mainly invests in public and private growth-stage companies in the technology industry. Background ...

(TCV). In February 2015, the firm announced a $100m Series B funding round led by TCV. It was also announced that TCV General Partner John Rosenberg would join its board. In 2017, the firm received $40 million in their Series C round of funding, with

LeapFrog Investments LeapFrog Investments is a South African-Australian private equity firm that invests in high-growth financial services, healthcare and climate solutions companies in emerging markets in Africa and Asia. , LeapFrog had attracted over $2 billion U ...

as the lead investor. In 2019, it raised a $175 million Series D funding round, led by TCV, Accel, and Leapfrog Investments.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Worldremit Financial services companies established in 2010 Online remittance providers Foreign exchange companies Electronic funds transfer Financial services companies of the United Kingdom 2010 establishments in England