upGrad Learner Makes the Case for Simplifying Remittances to Africa Through Product-Led Fintech

Even in 2025, it’s faster and sometimes cheaper to fly from New York to Lagos than to send $200 there.Despite being well into the digital age, cross-border remittances between North America and Africa remain unnecessarily slow, costly, and opaque. 

The paradox? The bottleneck isn’t technology, it’s product management.

The World Bank estimates that remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa reached a record $56 billion in 2024 (World Bank, 2024), primarily from migrants in the U.S. and Canada. These transfers are lifelines - supporting education, healthcare, small businesses, and family survival. Yet users continue to face delays, high fees (often 8–10%), poor exchange rates, and complex compliance hurdles.

This broken system isn’t from a lack of innovation as fintech startups are multiplying. What’s missing is a user-first, localized product strategy combined with forward-looking regulatory and blockchain infrastructure. The remittance revolution is already underway. Whether it succeeds or not will depend on whether product managers, developers, and regulators can deliver digital solutions that are as simple and trustworthy as sending a text.

Technology Is Not Enough - The Product Gap

Too many FinTechs design with Silicon Valley in mind, not Lagos or Accra. Their apps boast sleek interfaces but miss the operational friction on the ground: inconsistent internet, informal economies, complex onboarding due to KYC and FX controls, and the enduring dominance of cash.

For example, 60% of African transactions are still cash-based (AfDB, 2023), yet many remittance apps force recipients into digital-only endpoints, excluding those without smartphones or bank accounts. Migrants don’t want flashy dashboards—they want speed, reliability, and affordability.The startups getting it rightlike LemFi and Expedierunderstand this intimately.

LemFi: Multi-Currency Simplicity for the Diaspora

LemFi, an Africa-focused fintech, has captured market share by prioritizing the real pain points of immigrants: onboarding, FX fees, and payout flexibility. Users can open accounts in minutes, hold multiple currencies, and transfer money with zero fees at competitive exchange rates. With operations now spanning over 20 countriesincluding Nigeria, Kenya, India, and PakistanLemFi integrates with regional banks and payment systems, ensuring fast delivery and compliance.

Crucially, LemFi’s success is product-driven. Its multi-currency wallet model, partnerships with regulators, and commitment to user-centric design have helped retain over 70% of early users (PYMNTS, 2024). It is a case study in building for complexity while delivering simplicity.

Expedier: Credit, Trust, and Community

While LemFi focuses on remittance speed and accessibility, Expedier, Canada’s first BIPOC-led global money appgoes a step further by integrating credit-building into everyday transactions. Whether paying rent, utilities, or sending funds to Ghana, users can improve their credit scorescrucial for the 100+ million credit-invisible people across North America and Africa.

Expedier’s upcoming “One Card” will allow users to spend from any linked account in any currency globally, with automatic FX conversion. For small businesses dependent on liquidity, this can be a game-changer. Expedier’s BIPOC lens ensures that empathy, lived experience, and inclusion shape every product decision.

RegTech and Crypto:The Infrastructure Layer Fintechs Ignore

While LemFi and Expedier represent the product experience layer, another missing piece is infrastructure. Fintechs must stop treating compliance and settlement rails as afterthoughts. Regulatory technology (RegTech) and crypto-based solutions can drastically improve speed, cost, and transparency.

U.S. anti-money laundering (AML) laws and African FX controls create friction at every stage of a transaction. AI-powered KYC/AML tools like Trulioo and Onfido can cut onboarding time from days to minutes. Chainalysis enables real-time transaction monitoring. Yet adoption among Africa-focused Fintechsremains slow.

Crypto, especially stablecoins like USDC and USDT, offers fast, low-cost cross-border transfer rails. A hybrid modelfiat on-ramp → stablecoin corridor → local payoutbalances speed with regulatory compliance. Firms like Yellow Card and Chipper Cash already leverage this. Stellar’s partnership with MoneyGram is another promising example.

Yet, fears around volatility and compliance continue to deter mainstream adoption. This is shortsighted. Kenya, Rwanda, and South Africa are developing crypto frameworks; Fintechs that co-create with regulators, rather than avoid them, will win.

The Product Management Imperative: Build for the Last Mile

The biggest lesson from all of this? The real challenge in remittance isn’t tech—it’s product delivery. Every transaction is a trust exercise across borders, systems, and expectations. The most successful remittance products are built not just for efficiency but with empathy.

As a product manager in fintech, I’ve seen this up close. I once watched a Nigerian freelancer lose 15% of her week’s earnings due to FX manipulation and delaysdespite using a “top-rated” remittance app. Had she used a stablecoin or a better-regulated platform, she would have received the funds in minutes, at minimal cost.

Solving these problems means:

So What? Why It Matters

If you’re part of the African diaspora, this is personal. If you work in fintech, it’s professional. And if you care about global economic justice, it’s structural. Every dollar saved on remittance fees puts more into classrooms, clinics, and small businesses across Africa. More efficient remittance systems boost GDP, reduce poverty, and foster financial inclusion.

For African economies, remittances already exceed foreign aid and many types of investment. Yet legacy systemsWestern Union, MoneyGramstill dominate, extracting margins and offering little transparency. That era must end.

Conclusion: Smarter Products, Fairer Systems

The future of remittances between North America and Africa isn’t just faster or cheaper, it’s smarter. It’s built by product managers who understand the user’s journey. It’s backed by infrastructure that combines compliance and crypto. It’s governed by partnerships that align with local realities.

Fintechs must stop building for pitch decks and start solving for pain points. They must treat compliance as a product feature, and stablecoins as more than a buzzword.Product managers must obsess over why a grandmother in Accra didn’t get her money—and then fix it for everyone else.

Africa’s remittance revolution won’t be led by code. It will be led by product leaders who listen.

Biography

upGrad learner OlubamiseOlusoji is a Nigerian-Canadian Cybersecurity Program Manager currently consulting for a leading global cryptocurrency firm. He is pursuing a Doctorate in Business Administration with a focus on Digital Leadership from Golden Gate University, San Francisco - powered by upGrad.With over a decade of experience driving digital transformation across fintech and retail, Olusoji brings deep expertise in SOC 2 compliance, RegTech integration, agile security frameworks, and blockchain-powered remittance systems. His insights are shaped by firsthand experience navigating the high costs and complexities of cross-border money transfers between Africa and North America.

More about the Doctorate program can be found here.