YouSend, a London-registered fintech backed by some of the world’s most prominent digital asset investors, has formally launched its cross-border money transfer app in the United Kingdom and Canada, allowing African immigrants to send money to Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania in seconds, after quietly processing more than $1 million across 10,000 transfers during a referral-only private beta, with an average settlement time of under 15 seconds and system uptime of 99.9 percent.
The problem it is solving is not a small one. The Africa remittance market received over $104 billion in 2024, with Nigeria alone accounting for $19.8 billion, representing 35 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s total inflows. Despite the scale, the average cost of transferring money from the UK to Africa via mobile applications ranges from 5 to 9 percent depending on the provider. For millions of diaspora Africans sending money home to cover school fees, healthcare, family expenses, and business costs, that cost is not a footnote. It is a recurring tax on some of the most essential financial activity in their lives.
YouSend’s answer to that problem is structural. Rather than relying on the prefunded float and fragmented treasury operations that have kept traditional remittance corridors slow and expensive for decades, YouSend routes transfers through stablecoin settlement infrastructure, completing 95 per cent of transfers in under two minutes. The model also addresses a less visible but equally persistent frustration: for millions of African immigrants in the UK and Canada, sending money home has meant navigating settlement windows that stall on weekends and public holidays, and support systems built around chatbots rather than people. YouSend offers live human support available every hour of every day.
Co-Founder Adeoye Ojo framed the company’s founding mission plainly: “Sending money home is one of the most important things our customers do, and choosing us means they are placing real trust in our hands. Our job is to honour that trust every single time.”
The company holds regulatory approvals across all its operating markets: a FINTRAC Money Services Business registration in Canada, an FCA Small Payment Institution registration in the UK, and an International Money Transfer Operator licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria, securing triple-jurisdiction compliance before its public launch.
YouSend is backed by CMT Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Blockwall, CoinSwitch Ventures, and Musha Ventures. Expansion into the EU and the United States is scheduled to follow in the coming weeks.
The African diaspora sends more money home than the continent receives in foreign direct investment. The infrastructure serving that flow has not always reflected its importance. YouSend is making the argument, in code and in compliance, that it should.
Africa Presents is a Pan-African digital magazine and monthly publication covering politics, business, economy, culture, tech, and the stories shaping Africa and its diaspora. Visit africapresents.com and follow @AfricaPresents for daily coverage and monthly themed magazine editions
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