[SOLAR_FIELDS]

Curious why a solution such as Wise (formerly TransferWise) doesn't solve the transfer fee problem. Are certain countries in Africa not supported?

Not affiliated with Wise, by the way, simply a satisfied user (but I've only used it for USA <-> European transfers).

[init]

I've never used Wise because it doesn't serve my country. In fact there's no shortage of remittance services besides Wise.

The main problem is that the KYC and risk checks run by european and american companies don't take into account how people relate to each other in Africa and how money flows in the continent. It's possible that one person regularly sends money to several relatives with different names and in different cities in the span of a few weeks. Fraud detectors at the european/american remittance companies don't like that.

Many of us are also living abroad temporarily and want to retire in our home countries. We want to repatriate most the money we earn abroad but banks in the west don't make it easy.

[riancochran]

We offer more than just sending. Wise actually charges fees too, that make lower transfer values more expensive. But beyond transfers, Wise doesn't allow it's users to hold NGN, KES, GHS, for example, nor do they allow users to send from Africa into NA/EUROPE.