Money Transfer (Remittance) Business

Money Transfer, or Remittances Business accounts for US$ 600+ Billion worth of transfers every year. Despite the COVID-19 times, eventually, long-term the value transferred every year will only increase.

The reason you’re on this page is that you’re looking at the ability to get started in this business somehow and are trying to navigate the complex space. Trying to make heads and tails of this maze of complex jargon, ever-confusing regulations, licensing woes, compliance, access to banking, payment processing, and in general just to understand the general nomenclature of this business.

You’ve ended up at the right place.

Over the last few years, we have literally published 1,000s of articles, Q&As, podcasts, videos, how-to’s, etc. to help the cross-border payments community learn the intricacies and nuances of the “as-a-service” business model.

At present we offer help in getting set up with the money transfer business in four distinct geographies:

• United States
• Canada
• United Kingdom
• European Union (EEA – European Economic Area)

Understanding Remittance-as-a-Service

Remittance-as-a-Service or RaaS is a term that was coined by Faisal Khan (our CEO & Co-founder) in 2013. The quest was to find a legal method to be able to offer white-label remittance services to startups and incumbents alike for the US market (which is fiercely guarded, complex, and expensive to operate in).

At the time, circa 2012, white-labeled money transfer services were literally non-existent. The ones that were available, were simply out of reach of the vast majority of startups and incumbents, even banks from emerging markets, due to the prohibitive pricing structure that was available at the time.

If you wanted to enter the United States market for remittance-as-a-service (or money transfer-as-a-service), the odds were stacked against you, unless of course, you had deep pockets.

Even if you did, for those who did manage to get going, the results were short-lived. In 2013, the United States government, particularly the Department of Justice, launched something called Operation Choke Point (see Wikipedia Entry). This led to the start of the bank’s de-risking process, which many attribute to Barclays UK1,2 which started closing down the accounts of money transfer operators (the most infamous case of that of money transfer operators sending money to Somalia).

Whilst Operation Choke Point officially ended in August 2017³ (under the Trump Administration), the damage had been done. It set a precedent that was mirrored and copied the world over and there was no way to reverse the wave.

This really got us thinking, surely that has to be a better way to serve the international money transfer market? All these hurdles and problems naturally created market demand. The market needed a pre-packaged solution for the entire value chain of the money transfer business.

We literally worked diligently for over two years refining what we eventually became to call ‘remittance-as-a-service‘. Many doors were shut in our faces, and many emails and calls went unanswered, but we did not stray from our mission. After 127 rejections (yes, you read that right, you can watch the video story at Want Results? Just Don’t Give-up!), we were finally able to piece together what we aiming for.

A packaged solution, that encompassed licensing, compliance, AML, banking, payment processing, and white-label web presence for the money transfer market.

No wonder the quote, “The dream is free. The hustle is sold separately.” was something we could resonate with.

Getting Started?

If you are getting started in the money transfer business, then the one thing we can recommend is to learn and absorb as much knowledge about the field as you can. We have invested a lot of energy and time in making a very comprehensive series of videos (the only of its kind on YouTube). Over 150+ videos explain the various facets and nuances of the cross-border money transfer business. All these videos are short (less than 10 minutes) and explain in plain English the intricacies of the remittance business.

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This page was last updated on June 21, 2023.

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