eZi Remit and Mastercard Partner to Expand Cross-Border Payments Across Africa
The collaboration is designed to help simplify global money transfers while advancing financial services, particularly for underserved and underbanked communities, as well as major diaspora groups living in South Africa. Cross-border payments remain a critical economic lifeline supporting households, enabling livelihoods, and facilitating trade.
eZi Remit, a South African-based remittance fintech, has announced a strategic collaboration with Mastercard to enhance the speed, security, and accessibility of cross-border payments for eligible transactions. Powered by Mastercard Move, Mastercard’s portfolio of global money movement capabilities, eZi Remit’s solution is designed to enable South Africans to send money internationally with improved speed, transparency, flexibility, and choice across 25 countries. These include key markets such as Zimbabwe, India, Kenya, Ghana, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Recipients can access funds through multiple channels including bank accounts, mobile wallets, and cash collection points -depending on the receiving market.
The collaboration is designed to help simplify global money transfers while advancing financial services, particularly for underserved and underbanked communities, as well as major diaspora groups living in South Africa. Cross-border payments remain a critical economic lifeline supporting households, enabling livelihoods, and facilitating trade. For many migrant and informal workers, remittances represent their first interaction with the formal financial system.
The eZi Remit–Mastercard collaboration addresses key barriers to access by bridging cash and digital ecosystems through retail and agent networks. It supports secure, near real-time processing in supported corridors, improves transparency, and expands access to financial services beyond traditional banking infrastructure. The collaboration contributes to a more interoperable ecosystem helping to streamline cross-border financial flows.
High transaction costs remain a major barrier to financial inclusion in Africa. According to World Bank Data, remittance fees in Sub‑Saharan Africa average around 8.37%, while traditional bank transfers can cost an average of 13.4%, making the region the most expensive globally for sending money. Aligning with global efforts led by the United Nations to reduce remittance costs, the collaboration aims to support improved affordability and encourages greater use of formal channels. By leveraging advanced payment technologies and global infrastructure, the solution is designed to lower total transaction costs, while supporting greater pricing transparency and improved transaction speed and reliability.
“At Mastercard, we are committed to powering inclusive digital economies. Through the collaboration with eZi Remit, we are enabling faster, more secure, and more accessible cross-border payments for communities across Africa. By combining Mastercard Move’s innovative money movement solutions and eZi Remit’s digital reach, we are enabling South Africans to move money securely and transparently, with the choice and speed they need to thrive in today’s connected economy.”
– Gabriel Swanepoel, Division President for Africa, Mastercard
“South Africa is home to one of the most diverse and dynamic migrant communities in the world, people who work hard, sacrifice daily, and send money home as an act of love and duty. For too long, that act has come at an unfair cost. Our collaboration with Mastercard aims to improve the equation significantly. By combining eZi Remit’s entrenched relationships within diaspora communities and with Mastercard’s global payment infrastructure, we are not just delivering value to clients, we are contributing to the evolution of cross-border payments in Africa. This is about more than moving money, it is about enabling trust, transparency, and access to financial services for all.”
– Shaheed Farred, General Manager, eZi Remit
Mastercard Move enables banks, corporates, non-bank FIs, digital players and governments – and their customers – to send and receive funds across borders and payment types. It enables money to move quickly, safely and with ease, within and across more than 200 countries and territories, including high-demand, hard to access markets, and in more than 150 currencies, reaching nearly 17 billion endpoints and 95% of the world’s banked population.
