Popular UK bank, Monzo launches remittance to Nigeria

Monzo, the British bank with over 15 million users, is facilitating remittances to Nigeria through a long-standing partnership with Wise, another British financial institution. Wise is licensed as an e-money institution (EMI) in the UK and has an approval-in-principle from the Central Bank of Nigeria to operate as an International Money Transfer Operator (IMTO), as of March 2026.

“You can now send naira from Monzo,” reads an email sent today by Monzo to some of its users. “You are receiving this email as you are eligible for this promotion. Only your first NGN transfer will be fee-free from 22 June – 22 August 2026 – our usual fees will apply to any other transfers…Monzo may withdraw, suspend, amend or end this offer early where reasonably necessary, including for fraud/abuse, operational or legal/regulatory reasons.”

Some Nigerians in the UK see it as a welcome development as it bypasses “app switching”. Edidiong Ekong, a UK-based Marketing Leader, told Condia, “For me, it’s really about the flexibility to be able to send money from the app that I already use. The friction that happens is often associated with app switching. Using your local UK bank to fund a remittance and then another app to make the transfer can be stressful.“

After the promo period, Monzo will charge customers sending money to Nigeria a fixed fee of £0.59 per transfer and a variable fee of 0.93%. So, a £500 transfer would incur £5.24 in explicit fees under this pricing model.

Monzo’s announcement follows Wise’s own re-entry into the Nigerian market in September 2024. The international payments-focused financial services group, trading as Wise, operates three main arms: its consumer, business and B2B2X arm called Wise Platform.

In 2018, Wise Platform launched with Monzo as a pilot customer. After three years, they refreshed their partnership. Licensed as a European Bank, including the UK, Monzo leverages Wise’s infrastructure to power its international transfers, which include providing the FX rate and facilitating the last-mile payout. Currently, the FX rate on Wise, which prides itself on offering the mid-market rate, and Monzo is the same.

While this is good news for the British operators, African remittance operators are on alert.

Local UK banks vs African remittance operators

Over the last five years, many Nigerian startups expanded to the US, UK and Canada to capture the remittance flows to the country, which the World Bank estimates to be $20 billion per annum. They invested in expensive partnerships, operations and licences to give them a solid foundation to scale their customer acquisition efforts. But what becomes of this if the incumbents like Monzo, which banks one in five UK adults, start offering remittances to Nigeria?

Adedeji Olowe, a Nigerian fintech leader, does not think Monzo’s recent move impacts the business of Nigerian remittance operators. “Sincerely, I don’t think this means much because the other apps are not banks, so they have a more streamlined onboarding process. But to send money to Nigeria via Monzo bank, you have to fully onboard, which presents a higher bar for adoption,” he said.

Notably, Revolut, Monzo’s main rival, also enables payout to Nigeria in Naira. However, their rate is worse than that of Wise. As of press time, Revolut was offering ₦1,793.3405 while Monzo was offering ₦1,823.9 for one pound. Like Monzo, Revolut also charges a separate fee for international payments.

The aspect of fees is one area where the operators from Nigeria look to differentiate themselves on the UK-Nigeria corridor. First, many indigenous remittance operators do not charge explicit fees to customers as a marketing ploy.

Second, because they focus on a few corridors and have a deeper understanding and relationship with the destination market, they can offer more competitive exchange rates to customers.

For many fintechs, remittance, which represents 5% of the cross-border payments market, is only an entry point. The work is in how quickly one can expand to other services. For instance, LemFi now offers credit and savings to UK residents.

The question business leaders from the likes of Monzo and Africhange are asking is: How quickly can Monzo expand to serve immigrants to defend their turf, versus how quickly can Africhange acquire, onboard and fully serve immigrants with financial services? By becoming the primary banking partner for immigrants, the indigenous remittance operators eliminate the need for “app switching”.

Last updated: June 23, 2026