Moving Money and Mindsets

The report finds that while online remittance use is surging among certain African diaspora communities in the UK, 'stickiness' of cash remains high in countries with underdeveloped digital payment infrastructures, such as the DRC, Zimbabwe, and Sierra Leone. Key drivers for switching to digital include convenience, price incentives, and word-of-mouth recommendations, while barriers include complex registration processes, security concerns, and a lack of awareness. The report recommends simplifying onboarding, improving marketing through community influencers, and enhancing digital payment infrastructure in receive-countries to lower costs and meet UN Sustainable Development Goals.

• There has been a significant increase in the use of online remittance services, with approximately half of the focus group participants reporting a switch to formal online services within the last one to two years.
• The preference for cash varies by community and correlates with the development of the receive-country's payment infrastructure; cash is most 'sticky' in the DRC, Zimbabwe, and Sierra Leone, and least sticky among Tanzanian, Ghanaian, and Kenyan senders.
• The primary trigger for changing remittance operators or methods is personal recommendations from friends or family, as diaspora communities are highly interconnected via social networks and WhatsApp groups.
• Online-only remittance service providers (RSPs) like WorldRemit are more successful in corridors where recipients can receive funds via m-wallets or bank accounts, whereas traditional RSPs with extensive cash networks dominate in less developed markets.
• Barriers to digital adoption include complex registration and onboarding processes, perceived security risks such as identity theft, and a lack of awareness that online transfers can still result in cash payouts for the recipient.
• In the UK-to-Nigeria corridor, remittance behavior is heavily driven by the existence of a black market and government exchange controls, leading 12 out of 14 focus group participants to use informal methods to obtain better exchange rates.
• Large RSPs like Western Union and MoneyGram are perceived as not actively promoting their own online services in cash-heavy corridors, as agents have no incentive to encourage a shift to digital.
• The average cost of sending £120 from the UK to Africa in Q3 2017 was 7.9%, which is higher than the global average of 7.2%, with costs ranging from 4.8% for Nigeria to 13.1% for Ethiopia.

APA

FSD Africa (2018). Moving Money and Mindsets. https://fsdafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/DMA-Moving-Money-and-Mindsets-28.11.18-1-2_compressed.pdf

Chicago

FSD Africa. Moving Money and Mindsets. 2018. https://fsdafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/DMA-Moving-Money-and-Mindsets-28.11.18-1-2_compressed.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=FSD Africa |title=Moving Money and Mindsets |date=December 2018 |url=https://fsdafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/DMA-Moving-Money-and-Mindsets-28.11.18-1-2_compressed.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{fsdafrica2018moving, author = {{FSD Africa}}, title = {{Moving Money and Mindsets}}, institution = {FSD Africa}, year = {2018}, month = dec, url = {https://fsdafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/DMA-Moving-Money-and-Mindsets-28.11.18-1-2_compressed.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }