WorldRemit achieves key volume milestone underpinned by strong user growth

WorldRemit achieves key volume milestone underpinned by strong user growth, with Australian market a key driver

• WorldRemit now processing over 500,000 transactions per month
• 100,000 transfers sent from users in Australia alone
• 160,000 transfers received directly on mobile phones

Signalling rapid and accelerating global growth, online money transfer service WorldRemit announced it had processed more than half a million transfers in a month for the first time ever in September, with more than 100,000 transfers sent from users in Australia alone.

The milestone continues WorldRemit’s record for consistent transaction volume growth, showcasing strong fundamentals – consistent, growing revenues streams and a clear path to profitability. Global turnover is expected to reach £42million (AUD 67million) in 2016, up more than 50% on 2015 figures.

Asia-Pacific Regional Director Michael Liu said: “Customers in Australia are contributing significantly to our phenomenal growth, and money transfers from Australia are punching well above their weight.

“I think this latest performance data proves our decision to use Australia as a springboard for growth in the Asia-Pacific region was the right one. In September we actually overtook the UK for transfer volumes to both India and the Philippines,” Mr Liu said.

According to WorldRemit, the growth has been driven in large part by customers moving from offline to online transfers, but figures also show the increasing impact of mobile transfers. In addition to bank transfers, cash pickup and mobile airtime top up, WorldRemit currently offers instant transfers to 34 Mobile Money services in 26 countries with more than 160,000 transfers per month being received directly on mobile phones.

“Today, the majority of WorldRemit growth in terms of both volume of transactions and send value is coming from mobile. And customers in Australia are particularly mobile-savvy – they are 26% more likely to transact over mobile than the web,” Mr Liu said.

“When customers are sending remittances from the mobile app, the most common receive method chosen is Mobile Money (mobile-to-mobile). These are essentially transfers to mobile phone-based accounts, available on a basic function phone, and they are having a huge impact on financial services in countries like Kenya and Zimbabwe where many people don’t have bank accounts.”

Mobile Money is WorldRemit’s fastest growing receive method, growing at a rate of 7.8% per month as of June, compared with 3.0% for cash pick-up and 0.5% for transfers to bank accounts.