Remittances & Banking the Unbanked

What you'll learn

• The Global Remittance Market
• How Crypto is Transforming Remittances
• The Unbanked, the Underbanked, and Financial Inclusion
• M-Pesa: The Mobile Money Lesson
• Challenges and Honest Limitations
• What the Future Looks Like
• For Deeper Reading

Key terms

Remittance

Money sent by someone living abroad to people in their home country. Global remittances reached approximately $905 billion in 2024 ($865B in 2023), with $685B going to low- and middle-income countries.

Unbanked

Adults without access to formal banking services. According to the World Bank Findex 2021, approximately 1.4 billion adults globally are unbanked — about 24% of the world's adult population.

Financial inclusion

Efforts to make financial services accessible and affordable to all populations, regardless of income, location, or formal documentation. A major strategic goal of the World Bank and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

M-Pesa

Kenya's mobile money service, launched March 2007 by Safaricom (40% Vodafone-owned). Serves 66.2 million customers across multiple African markets and processed over 17 billion transactions in 2024.

Top remittance recipients

In 2024: India ($129B), Mexico ($68B), China ($48B), Philippines ($40B), Pakistan ($33B). These countries collectively receive nearly half of all global remittance flows.

Western Union average fee

According to World Bank data, Western Union's global average remittance fee in Q1 2024 was 6.36%. The global industry average is around 6.4%, well above the UN SDG target of 3% by 2030.

Stablecoin remittance volume

Approximately $90 billion in annualized stablecoin remittance volume as of 2025 — meaningful but still small relative to the $905B total global market. The growth has been rapid as on-and-off ramp infrastructure has matured.

On-ramp / off-ramp

Services that convert between local fiat currency and cryptocurrency. The quality of on-ramps and off-ramps determines the practical usability of crypto for financial inclusion in a given country.

Mobile money agent

Local merchants who serve as cash-in/cash-out points for mobile money services like M-Pesa. The agent network is the often-overlooked critical infrastructure that connects digital systems to physical economies.

Underbanked

People who technically have a bank account but lack access to important financial services like credit, insurance, or efficient payment systems. The underbanked population is much larger than the strictly unbanked.

Smartphone penetration

The percentage of adults with smartphone access. As of 2025, about 75% globally — with rapid growth in lower-income countries that creates the technical foundation for crypto-based financial inclusion.