Cheaper Way to Send Money Across Africa

Want to send money across Africa? Well, if you use the existing traditional payment methods it’s going to cost you time and money.  

Sending money from one person to another within your country is pretty straightforward. Those transactions take less than a minute and you pay less fees. It gets more complex when you want to send money to someone outside your country. 

In this article, you’ll learn why it’s so expensive to send money across Africa, and a cheaper alternative you should start using. 

Why is it so expensive to send money across Africa?

Before we dive into the cheaper way to send money across Africa, let me share why it’s so expensive. 

The main reason it's so expensive to send money across African countries is due to high transfer fees and foreign exchange costs charged by banks and money transfer operators.

Many African currencies are not widely traded or exchanged outside the continent. This makes it more difficult and costly for money transfer operators to convert one currency into another. 

So if you’re in Nigeria and you want to send money to your friend in Ghana, the remittance service provider may convert the Nigerian Naira into USD or another widely traded currency, such as the Euro or British Pound. Then, the provider may convert the USD or other currency into Ghanaian Cedis before the recipient can receive the money.

The reason for this is simple: for transfers within Africa, some remittance service providers have to send the money abroad for processing first before it is sent to its final destination. 

This is because some providers do not have direct partnerships with banks or financial institutions in the recipient country, or may need the necessary licenses or infrastructure to process the transaction locally.

The provider may send the money to the correspondent bank's account in a country with a widely traded currency like the US dollar or the Euro, and then the correspondent bank will send the money to the final destination in Ghana Cedis.

This process adds extra costs to the transaction, such as fees for using correspondent banks, currency conversion fees, and longer processing times, which can affect the amount of money the recipient receives. 

So if you want to send 100,000 naira from Nigeria to Ghana, it is likely that your friend will receive less than the 100,000 naira equivalent in Ghana cedis. 

This whole process may take about 3-5 business days or more depending on the traditional transfer services you go for. 

As if that wasn’t enough, the lack of infrastructure and regulatory barriers also contribute to higher costs.

In some cases, anti-money laundering regulations require financial institutions to undertake more rigorous due diligence measures when transferring money across borders, thus adding to the cost. 

All of these factors combine to make it expensive to send money across African countries, even if they are geographically close.

So what’s the cheapest way to send money across Africa?

Of course, Bitnob! Here’s why:

Let’s use the same example of wanting to send money from Nigeria to Ghana. Bitnob doesn’t follow the regular payment rails as other money transfer services. Bitnob makes use of the bitcoin infrastructure. 

And I know what you’re thinking “I don’t want to buy bitcoin. I just want to send money from Nigeria to Ghana”. I assure you, you don’t have to touch bitcoin for this transaction.

With Bitnob, when you initiate a transfer from Nigeria to Ghana, what happens is that the money you want to transfer is converted into bitcoin. That bitcoin is used to buy Ghana cedis which are then transferred to the recipient’s mobile money wallet. 

The whole process of converting from one currency to bitcoin and then to another takes only a couple of seconds. Why? Because of the lightning network. The lightning network is a layer two protocol of bitcoin that is responsible for speedy bitcoin transactions. 

Sending money isn’t only faster on Bitnob. It’s cheaper! 

Lightning transactions cost just a fraction of a dollar and sending money across Africa with Bitnob eliminates the need to go through banks or payment processors. That cuts away the need to pay extra fees. 

Let’s put some numbers to it. 

If you wanted to send 100,000 naira ($137.91) to someone in Ghana (1,619.06 GHS) using Bitnob you’d pay only $1.38 in fees for this transaction. 

Want to send money across Africa?

Now you know the reason why it’s so expensive to send money across Africa. The good news is that there’s an alternative that is cheaper and faster and that’s Bitnob. And the numbers never lie. 

Now that you know a cheaper way to send money across Africa, are you ready to send money to that friend, relative, or loved one? Start today with Bitnob. Click here to download Bitnob and make your first transaction across Africa. 

Here’s a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how you can send money across Africa. Happy transfers!