Why we invested in TransferGo?

We’ve all heard about Estonia’s fintech unicorn Wise (formerly called TransferWise), but less about Lithuanian fintech TransferGo. We believe that’s about to change. TransferGo aims to make the world of remittances a little smaller and offer fast, affordable cross-border payments to people like me and you.

Now, if you’re wondering if there’s enough room for another money transfer fintech on the market, then numbers say there definitely is. Even the Wise team themselves say that healthy competition is only welcome in the remittance industry since remittance fees remain high partly due to the market power of central banks and limited consumer awareness. At the same time, remittance platforms themselves are consolidating, for example, WorldRemit acquiring several regional remittance apps like Africa-focused Sendwave.

Global remittances affect a billion people worldwide, most of them migrant workers and their family members. In 2019, migrant workers sent approximately 714 billion dollars back home in remittances, amounting to approximately 1% of global GDP.

Globally, sending remittances costs an average of 6.3% of the amount sent. And that’s just the global average — the fees tend to be even higher around 10–15% for smaller personal transfers and developing regions. This further burdens the migrant remitters sending home their hard-earned cash. That’s why G20 and UN are aiming to lower transaction costs for senders to less than 3% by 2030. Lowering remittance costs can further drive up the remittance volumes.

New technology companies like TransferGo are disrupting the remittance market by offering simpler, faster and more transparent payment solutions for transfers of all currencies and sizes. TransferGo uses its home-court advantage and focuses on the Central and Eastern European blue-collar workers who often transfer smaller amounts of money and with higher frequency.

TransferGo has already achieved significant growth, surpassing all bigger players on the market like the aforementioned Wise. They’re also the world’s best money provider on TrustPilot, which shows exceptional customer satisfaction and trust. The customers highly appreciate its transfer speed, service, price and reliability. In fact, TransferGo is one of the fastest international money transfer services and the only Pan-European transfer company that guarantees transfers in 30 minutes or less — and in most cases in just a couple of minutes.

Clearly, the transfers market is still at the beginning of its revolution, not the end. We can’t wait to see the role TransferGo will play in its upcoming chapters.