Zazuu, the world’s first non-biased marketplace for remittances, has announced that its remittance collection product is now available in Ghana.
Founded in 2018 by four Africans in the diaspora, Zazuu prides itself with being the first start-up in Africa working to reduce financial inequality for Africans all over the world.
Despite advances in financial technology all over the world, Africa, and Africans by extension remain left behind in many regards. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, remains one of the most expensive regions to send money to with cost of remittances to the region averaging around 7.8%. For comparison, the Global SDG target for the average cost of sending money is a maximum of 3%.
Like many African immigrants living in the diaspora, Zazuu’s founders have all experienced the pain of seeing their hard-earned remittances swallowed up due to high fees and unfair exchange rates. This shared understanding of the problem and a desire to equal the playing ground for Africans led to the founding of a new service that changes the way people send money.
Speaking on the product, Founder of Zazuu, Kay Akinwunmi said “When building Zazuu, we noticed that there was a change in how people were sending money. Because people wanted to get the best deals, they would search two to three providers before settling on a choice. We thought this process was inefficient, so we built a single product that allows you to search, compare providers in your region and make direct payments when you get a deal that’s great for you. At Zazuu, we refer to this as the power of choice, which we are putting in the palm of your hands with the Zazuu app.”
While Zazuu initially started as a Search and Compare engine for remittance transactions to African countries, the launch of its payout product —Pay With Zazuu— in May 2022, completed its trifecta and heralded the launch of a new way of sending money for Africans all over the world.
Pay with Zazuu in Ghana
Meanwhile, Pay With Zazuu has also been activated in Ghana. It was initially only available for sending money to Nigeria, however, the company has recently expanded the product introducing 5 more African countries including Kenya, Rwanda, Cameroon, Uganda, and Ghana.
Korede Fanilola, the company’s COO, had this to say about its Ghana expansion, “We initially started in Nigeria because that was a market we understood well, but we’re gradually rolling out to other African countries where we know that we can provide value. Ghana is one that excites us, especially due to the cultural and demographic similarities between the Ghanaian remittance market and the Nigerian remittance market.”
Like most African countries, Ghana is an expensive destination for people looking to send money. As of 2020, the average remittance transaction to Ghana cost 7.43% of the transaction value. This is a cost the Zazuu team hopes to drive down over the next few months.
“As more people search, compare and send using Zazuu, we believe we can drop the cost of sending money to Ghana to less than 1% — an 85% drop from the current cost. We’ve built the first non-biased money transfer marketplace and we want Ghanaians to be one of the first beneficiaries of it.” Korede added.
Currently, Pay With Zazuu is only available for residents in the UK who are looking to send money to select countries in Africa. However, the team teased the upcoming launch of a product that would allow African recipients to search, compare and request money from their benefactors in the diaspora.
