- Azimo adds 10 new countries for customers in Nordic countries
- Increase will appeal to millions of foreign workers wanting to send money home
- Move comes shortly after USD $20m funding round
Founded just six years ago in 2012, international money transfers Fintech startup Azimo has just announced a major expansion of its remittance services for customers in Nordic countries.
Azimo users in Sweden, Denmark and Norway will now be able to send money abroad to 10 new countries: Australia, New Zealand, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The newly-added remittance services allow international money transfers to be delivered to the individual bank accounts of recipients in these countries in their local currency. And as Azimo boasts impressively low rates, high-speed delivery times and 100% coverage of all bank accounts, the rising digital upstart can justly claim to offer the best services in the market for all 10 countries.
The expansion is a shrewd and carefully calculated move. Between them, Denmark, Sweden and Norway play host to 3.5 million foreigners and families with foreign parents, a good many of whom regularly send money home. In excess of USD $7bn a year in cross-border payments, to be precise.
Over the last year alone, Azimo saw the number and volume of money transfers from these three countries soar by over 150%. It recently added a number of other countries known to use remittance services frequently, including Nigeria, the Philippines and Poland.
The move comes hot on the tail of a massive Series C funding round in May this year led by Japan’s Rakuten Capital, which saw USD $20m flood into company coffers. The sum brought the total amount of equity raised by the startup to USD $66m, beginning with a Seed Round raising USD $1m in 2013, followed by a Series A in 2014 (USD $10m), a Series B in 2015 (USD $20m), and a Venture Round in 2016 (USD $15m).
After closing the Series C in May, Azimo’s CEO Michael Kent said that the new funds not only deepened its relationship with Rakuten but opened the door to enabling the company to improve its top-drawer services even more, as well as sustaining the rapid growth of its customer base. He went on to confirm that Azimo would keep its focus principally on Europe, which happens to be the most capacious, most diverse and also the most chronically underserved money transfers market in the world.
Remittance services are currently cropping up at an unprecedented rate in all of the wealthier countries. Basically, wherever there are jobs, people will come in to take them and will frequently wish to send money home to loved ones.
Last April, Azimo launched a clever new feature, similar to PayPal’s Venmo, that simplified money transfers via its app by letting users request, send and receive cash internationally using a mobile phone number. As most of the foreign workers just mentioned will have a mobile number for keeping in touch with geographically distant friends and loved ones, simple mobile money payments are likely to prove a big hit with them.
Commenting on the addition of the 10 new countries, Kent said: “We already serve customers in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. We’re now extending our service to more countries, allowing more customers to send money around the world at a much better rate.”
If you’d like to know more about Azimo and its services, read our company review here.
