WorldRemit, Lebara partner to expand services in Europe

U.K.-based companies WorldRemit and Lebara have formed a strategic partnership that will give Lebara’s 3 million mobile telecom customers direct access to WorldRemit’s digital money transfer service.

The deal enables Lebara customers to access WorldRemit’s digital money transfer service directly from the Lebara app and website, while WorldRemit gains higher visibility from Lebara’s presence in 260,000 stores across western Europe, according to a Tuesday press release.

More than 90% of migrants still initiate money transfers through walk-in or manual processes, and Lebara expects its relationship with WorldRemit will encourage more of its mobile telecom users to adopt digital money transfer, said Graeme Oxby, Lebara's CEO, in the release.

“By making it easier to connect to our service, our partnership will introduce our safe, fast and low-cost remittance service to millions of new customers,” said Ismail Ahmed, WorldRemit’s founder and CEO, in the release.

WorldRemit began working with Google Pay last year and in December 2017 the company raised $40 million in fresh capital, bringing its total funding from investors to $233 million.