In January 2017, WorldRemit customers transferred more than $140m to Kenya, making WorldRemit one of the largest remittance companies serving the Kenyan diaspora, influencing the firm’s announcement that it would set up a regional office in Nairobi Kenya.
According to Ismail Ahmed, Founder and CEO at WorldRemit: “Kenya is famed for leading Africa’s digital transformation, and today it’s Kenyans abroad who are at the forefront of digitising international money transfers. Most of our Kenyan customers use our mobile app, demonstrating the strong demand for convenience when sending to friends and family.
“With half a billion registered accounts worldwide, mobile money continues to transform lives by allowing people to access financial services for the first time. WorldRemit customers now send more than 65,000 transfers to the country every month from the WorldRemit app and website with over 90% going to M-PESA”.
Mobile money has played a key role in the growth of WorldRemit’s Kenyan customer base, attracted by the low price, speed and convenience of sending instant remittances from the app or website directly to a mobile phone in Kenya.
WorldRemit data shows that transfers to mobile money accounts make up 93% of WorldRemit transactions to Kenya now – showing that Kenyans continue to be early adopters of innovative technology, even when abroad.
Globally, WorldRemit customers send more than 580,000 transfers every month to over 140 destinations. WorldRemit makes sending money as easy as sending an instant message.
WorldRemit is now connected to over a fifth of all mobile money accounts – 112 million of 500 million mobile money accounts around the world.
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The company has pioneered mobile to mobile remittances, sending to 32 mobile money services in 24 countries – more than any other money transfer service.
The Central Bank of Kenya says around the three million Kenyans live abroad made inward remittances reaching a record value of just under $161m in November 2016.
A few days ago, the firm partnered KCB Group to create a new instant option to send remittances to Kenya to support the growing demand for instant, digital remittances among more than 3 million Kenyans currently living abroad.
