LemFi, the financial platform for people living and working across borders, has secured approval from the UKʼs Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for its acquisition of investment platform Wealth8.
The approval paves the way for LemFi to add wealth-building and investment to its product ecosystem, marking the companyʼs entry into wealthtech and a significant step in its evolution into a full financial-life platform
LemFi is the trusted platform helping people move money across borders, access credit, and save money across the UK, Europe, North America and Australia. The Wealth8 acquisition adds a missing piece: the ability to grow money over the long term. It continues an arc familiar to millions of people: build life in a new country, support family back home, save, establish a credit footprint, and ultimately invest in a more secure future. With Wealth8, LemFi can now support that journey on a single platform.
That momentum is already underway. In 2025, LemFi launched its Instant Access Savings Account, powered by ClearBank: a high-yield product that lets customers earn daily interest, paid monthly, on balances they can access at any time. With promotional rates reaching 5.00% AER, it was a deliberate move to shift from just enabling customers to move money to helping customers keep and grow it. But Savings is only the first step in building lasting wealth; investing is also key, and it is precisely this crucial part of the financial ladder that newcomers are most excluded from.
The opportunity is significant. While investing remains one of the UK’s most powerful drivers of long-term wealth, participation remains uneven. Most UK adults with more than £10,000 in investible assets (61%) hold at least three-quarters of it in cash rather than investments. The barriers are sharpest for communities that have arrived from abroad.
Research from the London School of Economics published in late 2025 found that the UKʼs ethnic wealth gap has widened over the past decade. Runnymede Trust research revealed that for every £1 of wealth, several minority communities hold as little as 10-20p. The gap reflects unequal income, but also access to the assets that compound into wealth over time.
Wealth8 was founded to address exactly this divide, with a mission to make investing simple, affordable, and accessible to communities that mainstream platforms have overlooked, offering minimums as low as £8 and diversified portfolios. Under LemFi, that mission will broaden to reach the wider community of people who live and work across borders, combining Wealth8ʼs investment expertise with LemFiʼs scale, technology and 2 million+ customer base.
The FCA’s approval reflects LemFi’s growing regulatory footprint and governance capabilities, building on existing authorisations in the UK and approvals across North America, Europe, Australia and key remittance corridors in Africa and Asia.
Ridwan Olalere, co-founder and CEO of LemFi, said: “We started LemFi by helping people send money because that was the most urgent need. But financial progress doesn’t stop at the transfer. This approval allows us to help customers save, access credit and now invest, supporting them as they build long-term financial security wherever they call home.”
This acquisition is the latest milestone in LemFiʼs expansion from a remittance specialist into a multi-product financial platform, following its move into credit, connectivity and savings, as well as a series of market and regulatory approvals over the past year. The company has committed to deepening its presence in the UK, which it sees as a leading global hub for cross-border finance.
