In 2023, migrant workers on this planet may have sent $656 billion home across borders to low- and middle-income countries.
With its large and relatively successful diaspora, India was the biggest recipient of remittances, followed by Mexico and the Philippines. Our dear continent received about $100 billion in the same year—nearly double total foreign direct investment ($53 billion) and roughly 6 % of the continent’s GDP at the time.
Moving money across borders, a.k.a remittances, is such big business—and a pillar of some schools of thought in development economics—that there is an International Day of Family Remittances every year. Block your calendars for this year’s edition on 16 June 2025.
To illustrate.
At a conservatively priced average cost of 3.4 % per $200 in remittances globally, this $22-plus-billion (revenue) market (or $3.4 billion for Africa) is so large that every newly minted African fintech—and its older siblings—wants a slice of it.
African governments like this deal, too. The inflows are often significant relative to GDP and help refill national foreign-exchange coffers.
So Kenya’s President Ruto is working hard to get more Kenyans employed in Europe or the Gulf. Nigeria is launching a non-resident bank digital-ID scheme to support a renewed remittance push. And Egypt is dialing up policy reforms and leaning into digital transfers to shore up the forex it earns from remittances.
It’s one of those rare instances where government and cross-border fintechs’ interests align—at least in the public eye. Because we all want that remittance bread.
As all good untapped business opportunities go, the flood of competition is unending. There are new startups, revamps of old and creaking legacy remittance products, and, of course, shiny crypto things.