The Zimbabwean government says remittances grew by 18%, from $420 million in Q1 2023 to $494 million in Q1 2024. We are on course to surpass the $1.8 billion we received from our children abroad in 2023.
With figures like these, it’s no wonder there’s a fierce competition in the remittance business. Service providers are bombarding us with promotion after promotion, trying to woo us to choose them. This must be what it feels like to be a beautiful person.
Wiremit has been making some waves. Last month, we discussed their partnership with RIA to enable transfers to and from 190 countries.
This time around, they have a promotion:
Free $10
Wiremit says:
Effective immediately, when customers in the UK send money to Zimbabwe via our online platform, www.wiremit.money, and apply the promo code SEND10, the beneficiary in Zimbabwe will receive an additional $10 cash, completely free—no strings attached, just extra cash in hand!
I mean, who’s going to turn away free cash—$10 with no strings attached? It’s not quite 10 loaves of bread anymore, but it goes a long way.
Why is Wiremit doing this? They say it’s to give back to the community.
I don’t think that’s quite the story. The promotion is likely designed to get you to try out Wiremit at least once, hoping that some of those who use it just to get the free tenner will stay.
Ever wondered how you undercut something that’s free? You pay users to use your service. EcoCash is offering free transfers from the UK and South Africa.
EcoCash has been around longer and has a larger agent network. That’s not to mention the many other players in the space. So how could Wiremit compete with that? By paying users to try out their service.
That suggests Wiremit is confident that their service is good enough to retain users. It better be, otherwise those tenners will truly be giving back to the community. I don’t doubt the promotion will succeed, even though they don’t have the most extensive agent network.
Remittances
Turns out a number of you are sceptical about the reported remittance figures. Or more accurately, you believe there is no way ordinary individuals are sending that much.
You believe the bulk of the $1.8 billion coming in is laundered money from illegally sold minerals.
We’re light on evidence to support this, although I don’t doubt that some of the funds coming in aren’t exactly from Zimbos supporting their families back home.
All I would say is that estimates say there are 3-6 million Zimbabweans living abroad. Let’s work with 5 million. If each and every one of them sent $360 a year (or $30 a month) back home, that would be $1.8 billion.
Of course, not every one of them is sending money back home. However, some are sending way more than that.
That’s all to say, when you consider that millions of Zimbabweans are living abroad, you find that $1.8 billion is not unreasonable as a yearly remittance figure.
In any case, remittance service providers couldn’t care less why anyone sends money back home. Theirs is the transaction fee game.
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