Is Azimo Safe?

Company Information:  

Azimo, similar to Transferwise, CurrencyFair and WorldRemit, is an online-only remittance platform. It has been getting a lot of positive media attention, as well as investor attention. In its last fundraising round in May 2018, Azimo raised an additional $20m, pushing it’s value to $100m. The payments firm borrowed an additional €20m from the European Investment Bank (EIB) in 2020 to invest further in their payments platform and European payment solution.

Azimo, which was established in late 2012, was a success almost directly from the off. In fact, it raised its first million in a seed round in 2013, when it was already serving 30,000 clients who signed up and made a transfer during that year.

Azimo is so exciting because unlike its peers, it allows cash pickup in some countries, and not only bank-to-bank transfers. Another exciting thing with Azimo is the ability to sign up quickly via Facebook login, and then being able to transfer up to £889 every 30 days without providing any further documentation (there’s even a Facebook app!).

Azimo has been featured on mainstream media several times, and always with a positive outlook from the reporter covering them. They’ve been featured in the Financial Times, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch.

The firm was well ahead of the curve when it came to planning for life after Brexit as they opened a Netherlands-based subsidiary in 2019 to ensure the easy continuation of its services in Europe. Richard Ambrose, CEO of Azimo had this to say, “Aside from London, Amsterdam is the best place in Europe to grow a fintech company. It has a culture open to innovation, outstanding talent, a thriving banking sector and a sophisticated regulator. It also guarantees that we can continue to benefit from EU passporting rights to offer our service across Europe.”

The uncertain economic outlook doesn’t appear to have stunted Azimo’s growth plans. In 2020 the firm launched its services in Australia, and followed suit in Canada by launching there in 2021.

Regulated By:  Financial Conduct Authority (UK)

Awards: 

Best Startup, Payexpo, 2013

Finalists, Innotribe, 2013

Winner, Best Remittance Service to Africa, 2016

Sunday Times, Fast Track 100, 2018

Conclusion: 

Azimo is a financially sound company with $66m in investments to date, which has been operating successfully for the past 9 years. Their unique bank to bank and bank to cash combination, which can potentially push the large remittance companies like Western Union or Moneygram out of business, is revolutionary.

With everything we read in the media, plus 51,000 generally highly positive reviews of the company on TrustPilot, we could have concluded it’s credible. 

With that being said we have too many concerning comments on our comment section for this review, so we do think that while Azimo is beyond all doubt trustworthy as a company there could be service issues such as delayed payments or delayed refunds which must lower their score on this parameter.

Azimo Customer Reviews

Research:

There are over 51,000 reviews available on TrustPilot. Average score 4.6 / 5. 5% of them are complaints.

The Azimo app is very well reviewed, netting a 4.6 / 5 score on Google Play from over 28,000 reviews and a 4.7 / 5 score on iTunes from over 22,500 reviews.

There are sporadic reviews on other review hubs such as google and reviews.io. These rate the firm quite poorly (3.3 / 5 on google and 2 /5 on reviews.io) but they are non-verified views.

Update: There were several additional reviews by clients that were added below in our comment section. Most of which are bad, describing delays in payment, cancelled payments and funds never reaching the beneficiary.

Conclusion:

The majority of client reviews are highly positive, hailing the company for almost every aspect concerning currency transfers. The most common adjectives used to describe the company were around their promptness and how hassle-free the entire process was.

There are meaningful complaints about the company though. Seemingly the payments are delayed in some cases, and others are being cancelled to no avail. A very common theme in 2021 is users complaining of ‘proof of funds’ being required on EVERY transfer. It can be quite common for this to be requested once but when the same amount is being sent to the same beneficiary it’s not usually the case that you have to keep repeating this. Many users are complaining about the unnecessary hassle and delay this is causing to their transfers. There are also many complaints about the customer support. Read more in our comment section.

Azimo Exchange Rate & Fees

Research:

Fees: Fixed fee no matter the size of payment (this is much better than Ria who charge more as you send a higher amount).

• SWIFT Transfers charged at £11.99
• Bank transfers generally between £0.99 to £1.99

Exchange Rates: Exchange Rates have been very hard to determine for Azimo and we aren’t entirely sure on which sources to trust. For example, there is a somewhat outdated Azimo blog post which refers to exchange rate spreads being between 0.5% – 2% (not bad at all considering Azimo processes many low-value transfers) but there is also World Bank data which mentions a spread as low as 0.15% on some currency corridors.

Azimo’s own pricing page currently references World Bank data from Q2, 2020. This is a little outdated as the latest World Bank data as of August 2021 is in fact from Q1 2021. But how do the prices stack up today? We’ve completed our own analysis to gain a further understanding.

Is Azimo as Cheap as it Claims to be?

Azimo claims (August 2, 2021) that total cost of sending £120 to Thailand is £1.16 with Azimo, claiming to be the cheaper provider (with Wise #2 at £2.51 and Western Union Online at £4.99, with MoneyGram online costing as much as £8.51 online and £23.76 in Branch).

Our Analysis

*Calculated 02/08/21 based on the Azimo Currency Calculator found on their homepage and the live mid-market rate from google. Data as seen below:

Based on our calculations, a mid-market rate of 45.78 and an Azimo rate of 45.23 for GBPTHB shows Azimo charges a spread of 1.2%. We’ve taken the rates from google and Azimo within one minute of each other, so whilst the calculations are not exact, they should provide us with a greater understanding on Azimo’s exchange rate spreads. At 1.2%, this is clearly much higher than the 0.15% indicated on the World Bank remittance comparison. We don’t suspect any purposeful wrongdoing from Azimo here but we would have to learn more about how the World Bank calculates its exchange rate margins if we are to trust the rates they publish. It’s also worth noting that Azimo’s ‘introductory rate’ – a rate which is applied to a new customer’s first transaction – is actually above the mid-market rate. At 46.56 it means Azimo would actually be out of pocket if they buy THB themselves at 45.78. Whilst again we don’t expect any purposeful wrongdoing by Azimo it perhaps looks a little amateur, particularly when Azimo warns users of money transfer companies that offer rates which are more preferable than the mid-market rate at the time.

The World Bank data also indicates a fee of £0.99 when in fact Azimo’s own website indicates a fee of £1.49. Though it’s possible Azimo’s fee has simply changed since Q2 2020, it would mean Azimo’s own pricing page is a little out of date.

All in all, exchange rate spreads with Azimo appear to vary hugely depending on the currency corridor. This is not unusual for money transfer companies as they have to buy ‘exotic’ currencies at a premium themselves but an online-only remittance provider such as Azimo could perhaps be a little more transparent with their exchange rate spread (just as Wise clearly displays its markup).

Through other calculations conducted by the MoneyTransferComparison team, we believe Azimo can be a pretty sound option for most major currency corridors. GBPEUR transfers appear to be coming in at a little over 0.5%, whilst GBPUSD appears to be Azimo’s best corridor, with spreads hovering around 0.25% – making it arguably the single cheapest option for payments from the UK to USA. Other currencies generally appear to be within the 0.5% – 2% range but there are some expensive outliers. Transfers from GBP to Kenyan Shillings can incur an exchange rate markup as high as 5% for example.  [See the Remittance Prices site from the World Bank for yourself.]

Limits:The minimum amount for transferring is 10 GBP, while the maximum amount depends on your delivery method:

• Card payments have a maximum amount of 12,000 GBP
• SWIFT transfers have a maximum amount of 250,000 GBP

Conclusion:

We are certainly left a little confused on Azimo’s pricing – the World Bank data doesn’t appear to match up with Azimo’s own currency calculator, yet Azimo themselves reference the World Bank data on its pricing page. This leaves us a little apprehensive when reviewing Azimo’s fees and exchange rates.

With that being said, Azimo’s rates are definitely better than  traditional competition in the remittances space such as high street currency shops, some online competitors and better than their own rates since 2017 when we started covering them. In fact they have slashed their margin by more than 50% on some corridors. By far the best spread offered by Azimo is for GBPUSD transfers – in fact we think it’s just about the best you’ll find from any remittance provider on the market and you’d struggle to find a better rate when sending under £10,000. If our calculations are correct, Azimo is even cheaper than Wise for payments to the USA.

In terms of bank to bank transfers for other currencies however, Wise (Tranferwise) and Currencyfair are usually cheaper, Firms like Moneycorp, TorFX or CurrenciesDirect are also going to be more adequate for larger transfers (you can negotiate the rates with them, and either way, their rates are likely to be cheaper than Azimo’s when payments are for over £50,000).

Azimo Global Reach & Service

Research:

• Dedicated Dealer: No.
• Offices: UK, Netherlands, Poland
• Ways to approach: Email, Telephone.
• Translations: French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Greek, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Turkish.
• Accepts clients: UK, Europe, Australia and Canada.
• Currencies Handled: 60 currencies to 198 countries.
• Client reviews: Generally positive about the service they have received.

Conclusion:

Azimo is one of the best in its sector for providing a true remittance solution to many of the most major remittance corridors around the world. In fact, it has translations to many of the top-spoken European languages, and offers an almost worldwide solution, with wider global reach (in terms of payment destinations) than many of its competitors. Capabilities to get payments to over 198 countries is no mean feat. Though with just 60 currencies offered, this is mainly via sending USD.

The best part? Cash delivery. Whereas most of the recently launched digital companies focus on bank to bank solutions, in some countries that is not possible. This is where Azimo’s model really comes into place. Mobile money transfers for developing countries like Kenya where banking systems are unstable, and cash pickups throughout all of Europe and many countries in Africa.

For the above situations, Azimo is as cheap and high-tech as it gets. Whereas someone transferring a higher amount of money abroad may feel more comfortable with a company that offers a dedicated currency dealer who is readily available to discuss the currency markets (such as moneycorp, for example).

Additional Functionalities

Hedging:

• None.

You can only make spot transfers.

For Online Sellers:

No Offering but a business offering is available to SMEs.

App:

Really good app with full functionality. Easy to transfer money on the go. It’s rated 4.6 stars out of 5 in the Google Play store from over 28,000 reviews.

It receives an even higher 4.7 out of 5 score on the App store from over 22,500 reviews. This is very impressive for a money transfer app – most of which are usually quite poorly reviewed!

The site and the app are both integrated with Facebook, so you can use your Facebook details instead of having to retype them. The app is featured in our best money transfer apps list.

Conclusion:

Really good app and a great sign up process. Azimo has recently launched for business clients but functionality remains purely spot transfers. OK for SMEs who want to pay suppliers or overseas staff at the time of setting up a payment but no hedging functionality.