Should I Use Sendwave?
Pros:
Cons:
Services Offered by Sendwave
Official Website:
Sendwave Review: Executive Summary
Sendwave is a specialist remittance service, particularly effective for transfers to Africa, Asia, and parts of the Americas. With a user-friendly app and transparency in its exchange rates and fees, Sendwave has established a strong presence in its niche market. While it offers a fast and efficient service, it does fall short in terms of geographical reach and suitability for large transfers compared to more established global providers like moneycorp or Global Reach.
5,146
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Where is Sendwave Available?
Our Top Rated Sendwave Alternatives
At Money Transfer Comparison, we have reviewed over 80 money transfer providers, 40+ of which could be considered direct Sendwave competitors. View our best rated Sendwave money transfer alternatives which have received higher ratings below:
Wise (Previously TransferWise): Best to Remit Money Abroad for Cheap
- Largest Money Transfer Provider of its Kind
- Fees for Most Routes under £1
- Fully-Online Journey with Transparent Pricing
OFX: Remittances Kings of Australia
- Excellent Reach - Transfer to Any Country with no Fixed Fees
- Intuitive Online System, Easy to Understand and Use
- 24/7 Support Wherever You Are on The Globe - Be Treated with Respect
Currencies Direct: Best for Large or Repeat Transfers
- #1 Rating on MTC for the Past 2 Years - Tailored to Larger Transfers with Excellent Phone Service
- No Fees on any Transfers, Ever
- Very Friendly Online Platform
One of the Hottest Money Transfer Startups
- No Fees on GBP payments, EUR Charged at €3
- Very Low Margins, Down To 0.33%
- Great Reputation And Client Reactions
Azimo: Fees from £0.99, 4.6/5 on TrustPilot
- Very well known
- Good online system
- Tight margins
TransferGo: Rated 4.8 / 5 from over 22,000 reviews
- ltilingual Support Team
- Excellent Client Feedback
- Over 2.5 million Customers to Date
The following Sendwave review will highlight the benefits and potential causes for concern for those considering using the remittance provider to send money abroad. Extensive research has been conducted to bring you the latest exchange rates, fees and limits stated by Sendwave, in addition to a complete list of the origin countries and payment destinations that are available. We’ll also provide an overview of our in-depth existing customer analysis that draws out the key consideration points, both positive and negative. In addition, this Sendwave review will present how Sendwave compares to some of its competitors as part of our expert comparison service.
Is Sendwave Safe?
Company size:
Sendwave is an app-only money transfer service that operates in a particular geographical niche, offering services to quickly and safely transfer money from Europe and North America to numerous countries in Africa, Asia and a select few countries in South America. As such, they face direct competition from other services in their geographies such as Pangea Money Transfer and Remitly, as well as having to compete with larger players in the space including Ria Money Transfer and Western Union.
Sendwave offers international transfers by simply requiring a name, phone number, email and your debit card details. How the recipient can receive money depends on the destination country, but varies from Mobile Wallets, cash pick-up and a list of select banks.
Sendwave’s inception in 2014 was born from one of the co-founders’ own personal frustrations when trying to send money overseas to an NGO he worked for in Tanzania. Fast forward a few years and Sendwave has since become one of the world’s leading remittance services in their niche.
Sendwave’s continued success and rapid growth saw the established global player, WorldRemit, complete their acquisition of Sendwave in 2021 for an estimated $500 million. However, it is of note that Sendwave remains an individual operating subsidiary under its own brand name and retained its management team despite the merger.
Following the merger, the Worldremit Group subsequently rebranded to ‘Zepz’ who, in their most recent round of funding in 2021, raised an impressive $292 million combined from both existing and new shareholders including Farallon Capital.
At the time the merger was considered an encouraging sign for continued rapid growth, as Sendwave CEO highlighted a key part of the acquisition for Sendwave, was allowing them to continue to expand their service into new markets. “We’re eager to combine WorldRemit’s wide reach with our recipe for success in areas like Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria. Together, we can achieve a better service for current and future users.” Will Fogle, CEO, Sendwave.
However, more recently, Zepz CEO Breon Corcoran stepped down amidst rumours of a delayed IPO offering as markets remain affected by the War in Ukraine and the threat of further economic uncertainty. This was followed shortly after by the news that Zepz had made a number of their staff redundant, although a Zepz spokeswoman claimed that this in fact equated to less than 5% of their workforce, and it is currently unclear if any of these were sendwave employees.
Contrastingly, and on a more positive note, Sendwave has also caught the attention of global superstar Serena Williams. Her recently launched venture capitalist firm ‘Serena Ventures’ invested in the firm helping to garner some positive media attention for Sendwave.
Regulated by:
✓ Financial Conduct Authority (UK)
✓ FINTRAC (Canada)
✓ FinCEN (USA)
✓ National Bank of Belgium (EU)
Awards:
N/A
Conclusion:
Sendwave is certainly a company that has long been on a great growth trajectory. Benefiting from an early mover advantage in the African market and with fewer barriers to entry than some of its major competitors, it allowed sendwave to build notoriety and continue to grow at a great pace which ultimately led to being acquired by Zepz (the new name of the WorldRemit Group).
However, the reported news of a delayed IPO float for Zepz, as well as the CEO departure of this parent company and several other redundancies, means that some question marks remain. We don’t have a clear view of their financial performance or relations with investors during this potentially turbulent time. That said, Sendwave still boasts the same leadership team from the pre acquisition era, so the values, service and product that led to them being trusted by more 800K users remains, making Sendwave at least for now, still a safe and credible option for remittance wires.
Sendwave Client Reviews
Research:
Despite being a mobile app only based service, there are still over 5,700 Sendwave reviews on Trustpilot, with an average rating of 4.6 / 5. Sendwave reviews are also being added very frequently, therefore the recency of these ratings increases the chance that they’re a fair reflection of how the Sendwave service is currently performing.
As you’d expect, the majority of Sendwave’s reviews do come from Apple’s App store (11,000 reviews) and Google Play (28,200 reviews), where Sendwave has averaged a score of 4.6 / 5 and 4.5 / 5 respectively. And whilst this is an impressive number of reviews, which provides a well-rounded view of the company, it’s someway behind the hundreds of thousands of reviews amassed by Remitly.
Impressively, 90% of the Sendwave reviews on Trustpilot are positive, praising the Sendwave service for several factors:
- Speed of transferring funds
- Efficient, easy to use mobile app
- Competitive rates
- Timely text and email updates on transfer status
2% of reviews have been marked as average, and from the 8% of negative Sendwave reviews, common complaints include:
- Difficult process to recover money when users have experienced an issue
- Customer service team do not log call notes about ongoing issues, resulting in poor service
- Lack of communication during the refund process and extensive time periods to resolve
Conclusion:
The vast majority of Sendwave reviews, even recently, continue to be very positive. However, whilst their Trustpilot score has remained the same over the last few months, there is seemingly a significant number of customers facing inconsistencies when trying to send money to people they’ve previously had no problems transferring money to in the past using the app.
Even some of those providing positive reviews of Sendwave, have still highlighted that in recent months payments have started to take slightly longer than they used to.
On Sendwave’s part, their customer service team is very responsive to any critiquing reviews, however it’s unclear as to how many of these problems have since been resolved, as the negative Sendwave reviews remain on Trustpilot.
Sendwave Rates & Fees
Fees:
Sendwave prides itself on charging no or low fees in all the markets it serves, and at the time of writing, the vast majority of transfers are offered with zero fees. The table below highlights the countries and currencies where Sendwave does charge a small fee. The sole instance of a fee for sending euros is to Cameroon (1% fee, capped at €2). All other fees occur when sending USD to USD namely to Lebanon, Liberia, Nigeria and Peru.
| US | Belgium | Canada | Spain | France | UK | Ireland | Italy | |
| Bangladesh | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Côte d’Ivoire | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Cameroon | – | 1% fee (up to €2.00) | – | 1% fee (up to €2.00) | 1% fee (up to €2.00) | – | 1% fee (up to €2.00) | 1% fee (up to €2.00) |
| Colombia | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Dominican Republic | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Ghana | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Guatemala | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Haiti | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Indonesia | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Kenya | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Lebanon | 2.6% fee (up to $20.00) | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Sri Lanka | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Liberia | 3% fee (up to $6.00) | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Morocco | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Madagascar | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Nigeria | 1% fee (up to $14.00) | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Peru | 1.5% fee (up to $10.00) | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Philippines | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Senegal | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Thailand | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Tanzania | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Uganda | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Vietnam | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
Exchange Rates:
Sendwave is transparent about their business model and that they generate profit by taking a small markup on the exchange rates they offer. These of course will change regularly, however these rates can be easily checked both via the Sendwave app and on the Sendwave website homepage calculator, which lets you enter the amount you wish to send and in what currency. It then calculates how much the recipient will receive in the destination currency, clearly stating the exchange rate and any associated fees.
One thing Sendwave does not share is the actual, or interbank exchange rate for the particular time, so there is no immediate point of reference vs. the exchange rate you’re being offered by Sendwave. If you want to be extra cautious and calculate the spread taken by Sendwave then simply compare it with the rate available on google and calculate the percentage difference or compare the rate with another currency calculator like that offered by Wise (formerly Transferwise).
Limits:
Sendwave has a fairly comprehensive FAQ section on its website that states certain countries’ sending limits, as well highlighting their own in-app limitations.
Initially, a Sendwave user is able to send a maximum $999/£999/€999 per day, capped at a maximum of $2,999/£2,500/€2,500 per month.
However, upon receipt of a photo of a user’s government-issued ID, a user’s daily limit can be increased to $2,999/£2,500/€2,500, with a new monthly cap of $12,000/£10,000/€10,000.
Conclusion:
Sendwave is often praised by users for their competitive fees and is recognised as a cheaper alternative than the likes of Western Union, however they still face a threat from newer entrants into the remittance market who are looking to cut their rates even further.
Therefore, it would be fair to say that Sendwave sits somewhere in the middle of the pack, offering a happy medium of competitive rates but with a notable cap on how much users can send. Many users who have been converted to Sendwave have stated their frustrations with the sending limits, choosing to use Sendwave until reaching the limit and then having to use another provider for any additional transfers they need to make. Currency brokers, who have similarly smart apps and can also process transfers through an online platform, have no sending limits whatsoever.
Global Reach & Services
Research:
- Dedicated Dealer: No.
- Offices: Boston, MA (US Office), London (UK Office), Brussels Belgium (EU Office)
- Ways to approach: Email, Telephone (24/7 support).
- Translations: English, French, Italian, Spanish.
- Accepts clients: US, UK, Europe and Canada.
- Currencies Handled: 25 currencies to 22 countries.
- Client reviews: Generally all positive regarding the service.
Conclusion:
Sendwave is a remittance company focussed on its niche market of Africa, Asia and the Americas, and they continue to be one of the leaders in that space. For users dealing with multiple countries in varying regions, this of course means Sendwave may not suit all their needs, as they currently limit their offering to a total of 22 countries.
Another limitation to highlight is the total list of countries that money can be sent from. Residents from the US, Canada, EU and the UK can all register, however for Asian and African residents looking to send money, they will have to look at alternative solutions such as WorldRemit.
Additional Functionalities
Hedging:
None – Spot transfers only
For Business:
No – Sendwave is an app designed for individuals to send personal money using their debit card.
App:
As an app-only offering, Sendwave continues to update and evolve their app to improve the UX and overall customer experience. With a consistent review rating ≥4.5 / 5 across Google Play and Apple’s App store, the app is continuously praised for its ease of use and simplicity. This is a relatively high score for a money transfer application.
Conclusion:
Sendwave offers no other additional features of note, it sticks to its core offering of sending money to mobile wallets and bank accounts abroad. Users who would like to send money for cash collection will need to consider the likes of WorldRemit or Western Union.
Sendwave Review
Bottom Line
Sendwave isn’t a fully global remittance provider but in the markets it does serve, it is undoubtedly a safe and popular option. Its impressive growth trajectory caught the attention of Zepz (owner of WorldRemit) and the acquisition was a strong indicator for continued growth. More recent news has led to some uncertainty about the company’s immediate future, as well as delays of an IPO float will stall further transparency of the company’s performance for the time being. However the company is still receiving investment, even in these turbulent times and we may well see Sendwave ride out this economic uncertainty and get back on their growth trajectory in the not too distant future.
As an app only provider, Sendwave relies heavily on the reputation of their application, which fortunately for them has scored well across the board, with the vast majority of reviews continuing to be excellent or very good. However, whilst their Trustpilot or app rating scores have not decreased in recent months, it should not be ignored that a significant number of loyal app users are starting to report more delays and issues with their funds than before. Whether or not this is a general issue across the industry, or a specific problem with Sendwave’s service remains to be seen. We will keep a close eye on their reviews in the coming months and update this review as necessary if the customer complaints start to outweigh their positive reviews.