Tolulope Osho, Yusuf Yakubu and Adewale Afolabi — all Nigerians — are the founders of Pesa, a remittance fintech. The trio founded the startup following their firsthand experience using informal channels to remit money to avoid costly charges after settling in Canada in 2017.
They experienced how costly and unreliable remittance services made people resort to unsafe and informal channels like WhatsApp groups. Knowing the significance of remittances to households in Africa, they decided to find a solution, hence the founding of Pesa.
They initially targeted the Canada-to-Africa remittance market but now eyeing global activity, according to Tech Crunch. Osho, the startup’s CEO, told TechCrunch that the goal was to enable users to send money in the “most secure and fastest way possible” and to “remove borders around money.”
Pesa was built as a multi-currency wallet that allows users to send, receive, and hold multiple currencies. Currently, the platform uses six currencies.
“The way we’re looking at remittance is that you should keep on transacting when you move to a new country; If I leave Nigeria for Canada, there shouldn’t be any sort of break in transmission with respect to how I view financial services. I should be able to transact back at home like I really never left,” said Osho.
“With our multi-currency wallet, it means that as you transition between these countries (Nigeria, Canada, the E.U, U.S, U.K. and Ghana) you’re able to take your money with you like it’s in your wallet,” he said.
He and his team are currently working to get licenses for rollout in the United States, having just recently launched in 27 European Union countries, according to Tech Crunch. In the UK, they presently operate through a partnership as they work to acquire an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license. When the license is granted, it will give Pesa the full functionality of a bank and also allow it to offer cheaper services, and issue and hold e-money on behalf of customers.
Pesa has so far processed over a million transactions valued at $380 million and garnered 60,000 users, with 30 percent being active.
Globally, remittance flows are estimated to have increased by 1.6 per cent from $843 billion in 2022 to $857 billion in 2023 and are projected to grow at a higher rate of 3 per cent in 2024, according to a report. Pesa hopes to make a difference in the remittance market as demand for fast, cost-effective, and secure cross-border remittance services continues to increase.
