Moniepoint, the Nigerian fintech unicorn, has launched Monieworld, its remittance product that permits UK residents to ship cash immediately from a Monieworld account, playing cards, a British checking account or through Apple Pay and Google Pay to any Nigerian checking account.
In a stay demo seen by TechCabal, it took simply 17 seconds to ship £1 to a Moniepoint account, which acquired ₦2,172—₦53 greater than on different remittance platforms like Gray and ₦30 greater than Lemfi.
Monieworld makes cash via FX conversion charges, with plans to diversify income because it expands its choices. For now, it will possibly solely ship cash to Nigeria, which acquired £2.7 billion in remittances from the UK in 2021 via formal channels, making the hall one in every of Nigeria’s largest sources of remittances.
“We used to say we’re creating monetary happiness for Africans, however that has advanced to Africans in all places,” Moniepoint’s CEO, Tosin Eniolorunda, informed TechCabal. “Our objective is not only remittance however a full-fledged diaspora monetary providers platform to serve the African diaspora.”
Moniepoint is finest recognized for its blue POS gadgets utilized by 1000’s of brokers scattered throughout Nigeria to dispense money. After increasing into private and company banking previously two years, Monieworld is its newest try to diversify past company banking and construct a monetary providers ecosystem.
Not too long ago backed by $120 million from buyers like Google and Visa, Moniepoint enters the remittance area with a well-recognized playbook: supply one of the best deal upfront. It presently presents the best conversion fee out there, a technique it used throughout its agent onboarding section when it gave out 1000’s of POS terminals free of charge to brokers throughout Nigeria.
That technique paid off. Moniepoint now processes over 1 billion transactions month-to-month, price $22 billion, in response to the corporate. Past providing a better conversion fee for now, Moniepoint can be banking on Monieworld’s velocity and reliability to retain customers, because it has end-to-end management over transactions.
“We’re utilizing pricing as a pull issue. We wish folks to attempt the product as a result of it’s reasonably priced and keep as a result of it really works,” Eniolorunda mentioned.
Monieworld processes remittances via a Nigerian worldwide cash switch operator (IMTO) license below a Moniepoint subsidiary known as World Wire and a partnership between Moniepoint’s UK subsidiary and PayrNet, a licensed digital cash establishment (EMI) within the UK.
Additionally it is “deep” into buying its EMI license from the UK regulators—a transfer that can take away exterior affect in processing remittances, which could improve its velocity and reliability by holding the cash inside its ecosystem. Solely UK residents can use the app after present process checks to confirm residency, creditworthiness, and id.
Monieworld is creating its prospects
Moniepoint is not any stranger to competitors. In company banking, it competes with OPay and PalmPay, whereas in private banking, it competes for market share with Kuda. Its latest opponents, like Lemfi, Gray, and world gamers like Smart, have the benefit of focus, constructing merchandise devoted solely to cross-border funds. Nonetheless, Moniepoint doesn’t contemplate these firms as its fast opponents.
“Our greatest competitor in remittance is peer-to-peer transactions (folks sending a reimbursement residence via family and friends),” Eniolorunda mentioned. “Our method isn’t essentially to go head-to-head with Lemfi or Gray, it’s to go after the large, untapped market—folks nonetheless sending cash manually.”
Over 290,000 Nigerians stay within the UK, in response to a 2021 census, forming the third-largest nationality. Moniepoint is betting that its expertise in distributing monetary providers will assist convert a few of these residents into digital remittance customers through Monieworld.
“You possibly can have nice tech, however in the event you don’t know find out how to attain prospects at scale, it gained’t matter,” Eniolorunda mentioned. “ We’ve achieved it repeatedly on the B2B, company, and shopper phases. Now we’re concentrating on the diaspora.”
Monieworld has over 70 folks engaged on the product throughout the compliance, engineering, advertising and marketing, product, and buyer assist departments. Matthew Snell, a former vice chairman at Volt, a UK-based fintech, leads the compliance staff.
Monieworld’s growth exterior the UK
Whereas the app focuses on the UK-Nigeria hall, Moniepoint plans to broaden into a number of different remittance corridors. “We now have a devoted staff exploring new markets,” Eniolorunda mentioned. ”They’re continuously analysing licenses, companions, and compliance constructions in different international locations. That’s additionally why we arrange Moniepoint GB as a separate entity—so we may scale responsibly and compliantly from day one.”
Nonetheless, new markets include hurdles: compliance necessities, buyer acquisition, UX localisation, and liquidity administration. Constructing belief, community density, and market share takes time. Till Monieworld turns into a top-two supplier within the UK-Nigeria hall, Moniepoint says it’ll maintain off on launching elsewhere.
