Remitly Review: How do they compare to Wise, Starling & Western Union?

Why We Like Remitly

Every time I see my Mum she has me doing little jobs. Sometimes it’s reconnecting the WiFi, fixing the printer, changing the face on her smartwatch. Often it’s something to do with her iPads (for some reason she has two). Most of these jobs, I can’t really do because I don’t have an iPad. Thankfully my Wifi works fine, and the smartwatch she bought is unbranded.

But there is one job I can help with that I actually know something about. Sending money abroad. I’ve been involved in the currency markets for 15 years now. First, as a prime broker doing £20m deals for international payment providers working on behalf of companies buying new aeroplanes. Then as a currency broker myself, helping people get better exchange rates for buying a property abroad converting upwards of £250k. 

But now mainly I just test and review money transfer apps, thinking to myself, how ridiculous it is that so many money transfer providers are worth so much because the banks can’t be bothered to reduce their tourist rates and stop charging fees for sending small amounts of money abroad.

But money transfers are big business – at the time of writing, Remitly is worth $4.9 billion, Wise is worth even more at £7.12bn, which is even more than Western Union, that is currently worth $4.99bn (mkt caps as of 18th Oct 23). It’s crazy really, but then Tesla is worth more than Ford, and as we all know stock market valuations are not based on what a company is worth but what they could be worth.

Anyway, as my Mum spends quite a large amount of time living in Italy and has to pay for various things like gardeners, pool maintenance, cleaners and the annual production of her olive oil I am quite often called upon to help transfer small amounts of money to Italy.

She has a Revolut account but finds it too complicated. Much in the same way I can’t pluck a chicken because I didn’t grow up on a farm, she can’t fathom using an app. So she always transfers the money to me, and I send it over.

Usually, I just do it through a spare Starling account, who were (as you will know from when you read my interview with the founder Anne Boden) actually cheaper than Transferwise (as they were called back then) for sending Euros to Europe.

But this time, as I’m reviewing Remitly, I thought I’d try and send some money using their money transfer app.

I was quite surprised to see you do actually get more money with Remitly compared to Wise and Western Union. If last October when I tested the app I’d sent £1,000, Mum would have received €1,140 with Remitly, versus €1,132.98 with Wise (despite them saying in their pop-up comparison that Remitly would only send €1,128.32.
Western Union was slightly less at €1,320 and Starling came in at a woeful €1,127.49 (won’t be using them again I guess). But this was because you get better exchange rates as a new users with Remitly, as time goes by those exchange rates will get worse.

Usually, I like to play about with the features of an app and compare added value, and see which gives the best overall service. But money transfer apps only really do one thing, and that’s help you send money abroad cheaply and for today at least it turns out that if you want to send some money to Europe to help harvest your Mum’s olive oil, Remitly is the cheapest way to do it.

There is a cost of living crisis going on after all, so every penny counts.