WorldRemit, Lebara partner to connect new customers to its money transfer service to Africa
The battle for a share of the multibillion-dollar Diaspora remittances to Africa is set to intensify with after European mobile telecoms operator Lebara entered into a new partnership with WorldRemit. Under this partnership, WorldRemit will become the exclusive global money transfer partner of Lebara, including to transfers to over 40 African countries.
The deal will allow over 3 million Lebara Mobile and Lebara Money users to use WorldRemit’s digital money transfer service seamlessly, directly from the Lebara app and website. With more than half of WorldRemit’s transfers now going to Africa, this partnership will support the company’s plan to serve 5 million customers connected to the continent by 2020.
Lebara customers living in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, and Netherlands will benefit from WorldRemit’s extensive payout network in over 145 countries. This will provide a more convenient and lower cost alternative to the 90% of migrants who still send money through offline routes.
World Remit is an online service that lets people send money to friends and family living abroad, using a computer, smartphone or tablet. On the other hand, Lebara is Telecommunication Company that was founded in the year 2001 with headquarters in London and operates in over 40 countries.
Diaspora remittances have grown over the past few years that many countries have now included them as part of their growth domestic product.
As part of the deal, WorldRemit will also benefit from co-branding in Lebara’s full retail estate stores and advertising in Lebara Mobile simpacks sold in 260,000 stores across Western Europe..
This comes just a day after the leading telecommunication company in East and central Africa Safaricom announced that it had entered into a partnership with a leading online payment company PayPal which will enable M-Pesa users to shop and pay for goods online using PayPal and also be able to receive payments through their M-PESA accounts.
In the year 2017 Kenyan’s living in the diaspora sent back home at a total of sh 197 billion while in 2016 Kenyans in the diaspora remitted sh 174 billion back home.
