International money transfer platform, WorldRemit, has unveiled a new service that will allow Nigerians to receive remittances from the diaspora in cash across FCMB Bank, Fidelity Bank, Access Bank, Zenith Bank, and Polaris Bank branches across the country.
With over 15 million Nigerians living in the diaspora including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, the stable inflow of remittances plays a significant role in Nigeria’s economy.
“WorldRemit is delighted to expand its service offering in Nigeria. We recognise that the future of international payments will increasingly be defined by diversity and choice as more countries across the world strive to achieve universal financial inclusion,” Andrew Stewart, Managing Director for Middle East and Africa at WorldRemit said.
Sending and receiving money across borders has always been a strenuous and costly endeavour, and even more so within Africa with options limited to a handful of services in spite of the volume of transactions to Sub-Saharan Africa which grew from $37.8 billion in 2017 to a record high of $46 billion in 2018.
Read also: Seplat makes more money than it spends as margins surge
Stewart noted that thanks to the app or website, customers living in over 50 countries can now send money home for collection as cash in just a few taps from their phones.
“We also offer notifications to both senders and recipients when the money has been sent and received for complete peace of mind,” Stewart said.
Remittances continue to play a significant role in Nigeria’s economy as migration increases in its many forms. Studies show that inflow tends to be more stable than foreign aid and are not impacted by occurrences such as conflict and tend to increase in the event of natural disasters on a short-term basis.
In addition to Nigeria, WorldRemit’s cash pick-up option is available in a number of African countries including Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Morocco.
WorldRemit, which launched in 2010, offered a simpler and cheaper way for Africans in the diaspora to transfer money to Africa. In 2018, it launched transfer services within Africa and is now present in 50 countries around the world completing nearly a million transactions monthly.
The cost implications, however, continue to remain a cause for concern in optimising their inflow into the economy. According to the World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most expensive region to send remittances to, with an average cost of 9.4percent for sending $200.
Much of these remittances are directly received by individuals and families in the middle and low-income countries who rely on these inputs for basic necessities and to run small businesses to sustain livelihoods.
Consequently, during the ADEPT Fifth Diaspora Development Dialogue (DDD5) in Nairobi in 2016, the IMF, World Bank and the Africa Institute for Remittances constituted a UN SDG project with plans to reduce the cost of remittances to less than 3percent by 2020.
