What are the key challenges for both incumbent and new money transfer players now and in years to come? Our Head of Data and Research, Ian Manns, was on a panel to discuss this topic at the recent IAMTN summit in London. Small World Financial Co-Founder and former CEO Nick Day moderated the panel, which also featured Remitly Executive Vice President Pankaj Sharma, NALA COO Nicolai Eddy and AZA Finance UK Head of Sales and Country Manager Sukhi Srivatsan.

Here are some of our key takeaways from the panel:

• The abundance of new entrants to the market has made the space more competitive, which will continue to drive digitisation, more competitive prices and better user experiences. Remitly’s Pankaj Sharma says that cash will still have a big place in remittances, but consumers will drive demand for more seamless experiences. 
• Remittance players are seeing a rise of ‘purpose-driven remittances’ (e.g. repeated sends being made by customers for specific purposes) and believe there is an opportunity for players to be more bespoke in how they attract customers.
• Africa will continue to be a hotbed for new entrants. Newcomers such as Sendwave and Taptap Send have cemented their place in the continent in recent years. NALA’s Nicolai Eddy says that the company is not just building consumer layers that sit on top of existing payment rails, but actually building its own rails in Africa, meaning it is closer to beneficiaries and could eventually license out its rails to third parties. 
• ‘Disruption’ doesn’t need to be overly complicated, says AZA Finance’s Sukhi Srivatsan. Instead, it can be just about giving users faster, more transparent, fairer and less costly transfers. 
• For new entrants to the remittances space, building customer trust, navigating regulations and differentiating products are the main challenges moving forward.

Feel free to get in touch for a chat about payments or our brand new market sizing dataset, which covers global remittances over 9,000 corridors.  

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Joe Baker

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Joe is a Senior Copywriter at FXC Intelligence, writing and editing reports, news and analysis to support the company’s weekly content and client projects. Before joining FXC Intelligence, he worked as a B2B copywriter, journalist and editor covering a broad range of topics, including technology, transport, retail and the food and beverage industries. He has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Warwick.