WayaPay, the new financial offer for immigrants

Affinity offers represent a reason in their own right for the development of specific and differentiating offers in the financial services market. Among the potential targets, that of expatriates and immigrants, now served by a Kenyan FinTech based in the United States. Called WayaPay, it is launching a fully-fledged neo-bank.

FACTS

• WayaPay has just presented its new offer in the form of a 100% digital bank specifically for African immigrants in the United States.

• Named Waya, this new offer is primarily aimed at users of the WayaPay international money transfer service. It is based on a mobile application that combines remittance services with those of a digital affinity bank.

• Users of the Waya application will now be able to open digital bank accounts and :

  • send money to other Waya users in a dozen African countries, free of charge and in just a few minutes,

  • make domestic transfers in the United States (to make payments between individuals or to pay bills),

  • pay for purchases in the physical world using Waya cards linked to Waya accounts.

• The service plans to expand in the future by offering credit, a savings account and investment solutions.

CHALLENGES

• Expand its services: Founded in 2019, WayaPay has been offering a money transfer service between the United States and Kenya, thanks to a mobile application of the same name. The launch of its bank is therefore now aimed at completing an existing offer.

• Promoting inclusion: While WayaPay helps to create a financial link between expatriates and their relatives back in Africa, its new objective is also to diversify to enable users of its service in the United States to better integrate economically in their adopted country. Hence the deployment of services that are also adapted to the local financial sector.

• Addressing a growing niche need: Approximately 2.1 million immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa resided in the United States in 2019. The immigrant population from sub-Saharan Africa in the US has been growing over the past few decades and is expected to continue to grow, according to WayaPay.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• Financial services for immigrants from around the world are a niche market, but they are meeting a growing need. They have been deployed by a variety of players for several years: traditional banks, technology companies, payment schemes and FinTech.

• More recently, another FinTech was also positioning itself on this theme, now carried by Waya, to launch an alternative offer to the often costly money transfers. It combined this with a credit offer, illustrating the still vast potential of innovation in this area.