Xoom enables wallet transfers across Africa

PayPal’s money transfer arm Xoom now offers customers in the US, UK, Canada and Europe the ability to send secure money to 12 countries in Africa for a discounted fee.

“Sending money to Africa through traditional channels has always been costly. We wanted to help reduce the cost and speed up the process to enhance financial inclusion,” Xoom Vice President and Director general Julian King He said in Press release Wednesday (December 9). “There is no other place in the world that transfers more money to cell phones than sub-Saharan Africa.”

Although there were only five banking sites last year for every 100,000 people in Sub-Saharan Africa, there were over a billion cash accounts registered, King added, citing data from GSMA And the International Monetary Fund.

With Xoom, people can send money to specific countries in Africa with transaction fees ranging from 2 to 4 percent. By comparison, the average fee for transferring money using traditional channels was around 9 percent in 2018, the statement said data From the World Bank Group.

People can use Xoom to transfer money via mobile phone in Burundi, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The company plans to expand to more markets next year.

Mobile money transfer tools help drive financial inclusion in emerging markets and can also help drive economic expansion, according to the release.

Xoom was a pioneer in digital transformation Acquired By PayPal in 2015 for $ 890 million in an all-cash deal at $ 25 per share. It operates independently under the PayPal Corporate umbrella.

PayPal announced in July that Xoom Launched in the UK and 31 markets across Europe. King told PYMNTS that the Xoom Market segment was disadvantaged. The two companies, he said, now enjoy “a great deal of trust” from clients.

Last month , PayPal It expanded Xoom’s capabilities to enable US customers to instantly transfer money to individual bank accounts. More than a third of Xoom customers are already using the service in the United States

Companies too partners With Walmart and Ria to facilitate international money transfers at 5,000 US locations.