Lebara, the telecommunication group well known for making migrants’ lives easier with cheap international phone calls, just launched a new money transfer service. It’s called Lebara Money and will compete with other players like TransferGo, Azimo, TransferWise or Western Union.
For now, the service is only available for money transfers from the United Kingdom and is limited to UK debit or prepaid card holders. You can send money to 39 countries in 12 currencies. Lebara Money launched with an interesting feature that let users lock Lebara Money’s exchange rate of the day for a transfer upto 30 days later. This is a good addition to a traditionnal money transfer service and can be particularly interesting if you are afraid of exchange rate fluctuations.
Ratheesan Yoganathan, founder and chairman of the Lebara Group, as reported by Techcrunch, says: “Migrants have distinct financial needs that are often poorly served currently, if even recognised by the mainstream industry.”
It’s interesting to see brands that have a long history of serving migrants and a huge network of retail locations entering the money transfer industry. Lebara is following the steps of its competitor Lycamobile that had launched Lycaremit in early 2016 with the same objectives.