TransferTo’s mobile remittance platform allows users to send money across borders in real time, and for a specific purpose. The San Francisco-based company aims to solve two pain points in remittance payments:

1) Small remittances incur large fees of up to 50%, making wire transfers an inefficient way to send money under $50.

TransferTo specializes in low dollar remittance payments by creating a low-cost way to send small amounts of money.

2) Senders are not able to control how the recipient spends the money.

TransferTo places the sender in control by allowing them to dictate the specific purpose for which the recipient uses the funds

Stats

• Partnered with a network of 400 mobile network operators and utility providers in 100+ countries
• Has over 1,000 B2B customers in 30 countries
• Processes more than 45 million transactions annually
• Founded in 2005
• Consumers are using the service 3x per month on average
• On average, each sender remits money to 2.5 people

The company’s secret sauce is in its partnerships. By connecting the sender’s mobile network operator (MNO) with the recipients’ MNO or utility provider, TransferTo offers a low-friction way to debit and credit the accounts.

Use Cases

1) Top up airtime via SMS
The image below shows the SMS flow. In this case, a user tops up the airtime minutes of their friend or family in the Philippines. Using any device, they send TransferTo an SMS of the recipient’s mobile phone number and select the amount to send, 90 PHP.

After agreeing to the $2 fee, the 90 PHP is automatically and instantly applied to the recipient’s prepaid airtime minutes.

2) Top up electricity meter via mobile app
On a smartphone, the sender uses the mobile web app or native Android app to send remittances. In the example below, the user wants to send 50,000 Indian Rupees (Rp) to a friend or family member in Indonesia.

They enter the recipient’s mobile phone number and meter number and select the amount to load on the prepaid electricity meter. After agreeing to the fee and confirming the amount, the beneficiary instantly receives Rp 50,000, along with instructions on how to apply the balance to their electricity meter.

It is also available on a web platform:

Depending on the recipient’s geographical region, the sender can specify remittances for:

• Mobile phone
• Television
• Electricity
• Education
• Grocery
• Pharmacy
• Phone service
• Healthcare
• Public Transportation
• Gas/ Petrol

TransferTo’s API enables financial institutions and money transfer companies to offer a white-labeled service as a complement to traditional P2P payment services. PayPal, Wells Fargo, and Western Union are current clients.

TransferTo demonstrated prepaid electricity remittance at FinovateEurope 2015. Check out the live demo video.