Xoom, PayPal’s money transfer service, has announced that the company’s customers in the US, UK, Canada and Europe can now send secure and convenient money transfers directly to mobile wallets in key markets across Africa with a focus on the underbanked segment. This new service expands the company’s offering to send money to mobile wallets in Burundi, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe — with plans to include more markets in 2021.
“Sending money to Africa through traditional channels has always been expensive. We wanted to help bring down the cost and speed up the process to boost financial inclusion,” said Julian King, Vice President and General Manager, Xoom. “There is nowhere else in the world that moves more money on mobile phones than Sub-Saharan Africa. While there are only five bank branches per 100,000 people as of 20192, there are 1.04 billion registered mobile money accounts in Sub-Saharan Africa3.”
Here Is What You Need To Know
- This new service expands Xoom’s offerings in Africa as the current service already enables money transfers for cash pick-up, direct banks deposits and mobile reloads to 41 countries in Africa.
- The cost of sending money through traditional channels to Africa is one of the most expensive in the world, with an average cost of 9.3 percent. The cost of sending $200 to the Sub-Saharan African region averaged 9 percent in 2018 and in the southern African subregion, the average cost was 18.7 percent, almost three times higher than the global average according to the World Bank.
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- Xoom hopes to bring down the cost to significantly with average costs of sending money to mobile wallets in select African markets ranging from 2–4% of the transaction.
- Mobile money services are being deployed rapidly across emerging markets as a key tool to further the goal of financial inclusion. Financial inclusion is instrumental in lifting the undeserved population out of poverty — and for driving economic growth. In 2019, the number of globally registered mobile money accounts surpassed the one billion mark. In Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe, over 60 percent of adults have mobile money accounts.
- To send money to Africa with Xoom in a few simple steps, download Xoom’s mobile app on Android and iOS or go to Xoom.com and set up an account easily or log-in using PayPal credentials.