How FinTech Has Improved the Money Transfer Process

North America is home to millions of migrant workers living and working for American and Canadian economies while also sending money home to support their families. These people work hard at manual labor jobs (often heavily contributing to the harvesting and distribution of our food supply) and deserve the ability to easily send a portion of their earnings to family members living in other countries.

Until recently, these workers had to rely on remittance firms to transfer the money, paying sizeable fees to send funds to loved ones. Thanks to FinTech and its innovations, however, the process is now much easier and cheaper.

Xoom was one of the earliest entries in the market, giving customers an easy way to send money or pay bills. Now owned by PayPal (which bought the company in 2015 for $890 million), users can send money to over 50 countries for a fraction of what remittance firms charge. They can also easily pay international bills, both helping to ease the moving transition and giving people another way to assist overseas family members. The system is set up so people can sign up for an account and start sending money within minutes (and even track the transfers), making the act of sending money simple and stress free.

Another new option is Remitly, which lays out its vision as “[empowering] people to strengthen relationships across borders by being the world’s most customer-focused payments company.” The company strives to make the money transfers as painless as possible, using technology to eliminate many of the steps formerly involved in transfers (forms, codes, agent interaction, etc.). Well aware of the issues immigrants face when trying to access financial services, the company wants to help change the system and give these immigrants access to the funds they need to survive and thrive in their new country as well as support their families. Considering the fact that they passed $1 billion in annual transfers, they have tapped into a needed and lucrative market.

The increasingly shifting global economy means more and more people are going to immigrate in order to meet their financial needs. As moving entire extended families is near impossible and incredibly expensive, people will be left behind. Giving these immigrants easy and affordable access to money transfer services is the best way to ensure that everyone involved remains healthy and free of stress while the workers contribute to the growing global economy.