Tempo Money Transfer starts operations in Cuba and Haiti, in alliance with 'More Money Transfers'

International remittances provider, Tempo Money Transfer, started its operations in Cuba and Haiti in alliance with 'More Money Transfers'. The Paris- headquartered company and Uruguay-based operator successfully established the joint project and commenced remittances from Tempo's locations in France and Germany with the option to receive funds in More Money's locations in the two Caribbean countries. 

The number of locations exceeds 300 in Cuba and reaches nearly 500 in Haiti.

The service opens the door for account-crediting in Cuba.

Both parties believe that the project has  great potential.

“Just recently Cuba started taking its first steps towards integrating into the global economy, which means more prospect for tourism and, in future, likely more options for Cubans to travel and work in foreign countries,” said the president for Tempo Money Transfer, Mr. Jeffrey Phaneuf. 

He said also that the demand for the services of genuine European standards is on the rise in Haiti, which has traditionally been one of the most lucrative tourist destinations.

The Montevideo - headquartered company said that the joint project in which the two companies successfully commenced, is a significant step forward, even to the regional money transfer market.

“Cooperation between Tempo and us is focused on a very important and promising money transfer corridor. The start manifests its further development throughout all Latin America, where our company has a strong position and where there has been a stable demand for EU-quality services,” the company said. 

Currently, Tempo Money Transfer operates over 70 locations in France and Germany. The EU-licensed remittances provider has been very active on the international money transfer curcuit.

For the past 12 months it has released ambitious projects in Asia, Northern and Equatorial Africa, as well as in Europe.

According to the company’s 2015 results, Tempo Money Transfer operates in over 100 countries and the number of service locations exceeded 180 thousand.

One of the main priorities of the company, is an introduction of low transaction costs, which makes for a decrease in the black market and bringing remittances into regulated view.

YES Bank ties-up with Global IME Bank

YES Bank becomes the first bank in India launching Indo-Nepal remittance for Nepalese residents in India. 
YES Bank, India’s 5th largest private sector bank, today announced the launch of its Indo-Nepal Remittance through its collaboration with 3 Banks in Nepal viz. Global IME Bank, Mega Bank and NMB Bank.
Nepalese migrants can now register for this program with Nepalese ID documents and initiate remittance. They can deposit cash and this money will be remitted to the beneficiary’s bank account or cash will be disbursed though over 3000 agent points and 100+ branches of Global IME Bank, Mega Bank and NMB Bank in Nepal.
There are over 4 million Nepalese citizens in India, remitting an estimated amount of INR 30,000 Crores annually, of which only about 10% go through formal banking channels. 

Peru remittances

Remittances to Peruvian amounted to US$721 million in 2016's second quarter.
Representing an 8% increase from the same period last year, Peru's Central Reserve Bank (BCR) reported

First position by USA. Remittances from the United States accounted for 26% of the total (between April and June 2016).

Chile held the second position (10%) with a 13% growth, followed by Italy (up by 38%).

Likewise, remittances from expatriates in Japan and Argentina grew by 9% and 25%, respectively. However, Spain-originated flows decreased 2%.

Tempo starts large project in Central Africa

Tempo Money Transfer, in collaboration with its partner Express Union has begun a large project in Africa, where the France-based company has been carrying out intensive development. 
The focus of the project, is the Central African nations – Cameroon, Chad, DRC , Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Congo, Gabon, West Africa and Rwanda.
The completion of the project provides the customer with more than 400 pay-out locations, excluding those of EU’s local agents.


Clients are now able to send money from Tempo locations in Germany and France and collect the cash in outlets operated by Express Union and its local agents in the countries mentioned. The new network covers the countries’ big cities and towns, while outlets are safely located in business areas and shopping malls where the businesses successfully operate.
In his comments at the start of the project, president for Tempo, Mr. Jeffrey Phaneuf said that with its over $90-billion money transfer market, Africa features tremendous potential for ambitious players.


Tempo expect a 1.5 percent segment growth in 2016.
The company has rapidly been stepping up its network in the market. It recently rolled out its pay-out network in Nigeria, Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania and Sierra Leone.
 The company together with one of Africa's leading financial technology providers, are in the process of launching a large-scale project in Nigeria.
 It enables clients to send money from Tempo's locations in Germany and France, to credit the funds into any bank account or mobile wallet, of a cell operator in Nigeria. 


The Nigerian project is very close to completion. According to Tempo’s estimates, this remittances segment accounted for over $25 billion.
“Development in Africa is one of our top priorities. The key elements of the strategy here are enlarging the size of the pay-out network, as well as widening the product spectrum, this includes not only account crediting, but in the future, bill payments. African countries have rapidly developing infrastructure and intellectual potential for this,” Mr. Phaneuf said.

Alipay and Ingenico

Ingenico, the Paris-based payments software and terminals, has signed a partnership with Alipay. This new agreement will enable many of the estimated 12.5m Chinese tourists visiting Europe to pay for goods and services using the platform.

Bangladesh remittances

Bangladesh received $503.78 million in remittance during the first 12 days of the current month of August.

Bangladesh Bank statistics shows that maximum remittance came through private commercial banks as they received $334.09 million while the nine foreign banks $5.51 million.

From UAE to Egypt

The World Bank has released figures showing that Egypt is the country that receives the highest amount of remittances in the MENA region. In 2015, the country received an estimated $19.7bn in remittances from around the world, of which $1.83bn was received from Egyptians residing in the UAE.

Remittances play an important role in the Egyptian economy, contributing to 6.8% of the country’s GDP in 2014.

Remittances startup Ozaremit

Ozaremit recently secured a six-figure investment from three angel investors focused on the emerging markets. Thibault Launay, Romain Girbal and Célia Grémy are French investors who have an interest in early to mid-stage startups including an African classifieds service called Afrimalin that’s active in 8 Francophone countries.

According to the information shared by the Ozaremit co-founders Ibrahima Soumano and Takwana Tyaranini the three investors have collectively acquired a significant amount of equity in Ozaremit.

This capital will be used for product improvement (there’s work being done on the web interface and a mobile app is also in the pipeline) and some efforts at gaining visibility through an aggressive marketing campaign.

It’s also meant to open up Ozaremit to new services with focus areas set to be mobile money and goods (invoice payment) remittances. This fulfils the initial plans that the Ozaremit co-founders spoke of a few months ago.

Their service started off with one service focused on mobile (ie the airtime remittances) before jumping into the lucrative money transfer track.

The Ozaremit team says it’s confident that with the growth it is registering in users and revenue right now it will be able to secure more capital before the end of 2016. It is eyeing another 6 figure investment through the network of  international business angels that it is working with.

If successful, the team says that its valuation should exceed 2 million euros by the beginning of 2017.

Bitspark and Vitaxel

Bitspark, headquatered in Hong Kong, was founded in April 2014 and specialises in remittances services in the Asia Pacific region. It is also known for introducing the world’s first brick-and-mortar bitcoin remittance vendor in Hong Kong.
Bitspark has signed a Master Agreement with Vitaxel Group to enter the Malaysian market. The partnership will enable customers in Malaysia to access Bitspark’s full services at local money transfer outlets and provide an option for individuals to utilise mobile payments.

The partnership with Vitaxel will allow the startup to add Malaysia and MYR as a supported country and currency. Bitspark currently allows for remittances to the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam and has over 100,000 cash pickup locations.

Vitaxel, a market leader in the MLM and e-commerce space, has over 5,000 distributors in 16 countries in Asia. The firm is primarily engaged in the direct selling industry with an emphasis on travel, entertainment and lifestyle products and services.

For Bitspark, Malaysia’s remittance market represents a significant opportunity. In 2014, Malaysia – Indonesia was the largest remittance corridor in Southeast Asia. This is notably due to the high number of Indonesians working abroad in the region in countries such as Malaysia and Singapore.