A nurse finishes her shift at a hospital in London, opens a money transfer app, and sends £250 to her mother in Nairobi. The app confirmation comes instantly. The money does not. It will arrive in two to four business days — processed through a correspondent chain, converted twice, and delivered to a Kenyan bank account at an exchange rate the sender never saw before pressing confirm. By the time the balance appears, the market trip it was sent for has already happened on credit.
Kenya received USD 4.95 billion in diaspora remittances in 2024 — a record high and an 18% increase from the year before (Central Bank of Kenya, 2025). Uganda received USD 1.49 billion (World Bank, 2024). Ethiopia received USD 5.1 billion in just the first nine months of its 2024-25 fiscal year (IMF, 2025). The three economies are among the largest remittance recipients in sub-Saharan Africa, and the communities that send to them — from the UK, the Gulf, North America — do so with a regularity that makes the infrastructure beneath those sends a lived reality, not an occasional transaction.
That infrastructure is still not as good as the volume it carries deserves.
Why East Africa remains expensive despite high mobile-money adoption
East Africa has the most developed mobile-money ecosystem in the world. M-Pesa alone has 34 million registered customers in Kenya and a network of 381,000 agents nationwide (Safaricom, 2024). East Africa processed approximately USD 806 billion in mobile-money transaction value in 2025 — more than any other sub-region globally (GSMA, State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2026). By almost every measure, the domestic financial infrastructure in Kenya and the broader region is ahead of most of the world.
And yet the international corridor into East Africa remains among the most expensive in sub-Saharan Africa. The East Africa sub-region averaged 9.9% on a USD 200 send in Q1 2025 — the highest of any African sub-region, above Southern Africa's 8.9%, well above West Africa's 5.9%, and significantly above the global average of 6.49% (World Bank, Remittance Prices Worldwide Issue 53, 2025). The cost sits at the international entry point to the region, not inside it.
A Kenyan diaspora member sending £200 home from London is paying close to £20 in combined fees and exchange-rate margin through a traditional channel — before the value reaches M-Pesa or any domestic platform at all. The infrastructure inside East Africa is excellent. The international bridge into it is where the cost accumulates.
East Africa processed approximately USD 806 billion in mobile-money transaction value in 2025 — more than any other sub-region in the world. The domestic infrastructure works. The 9.9% average cost sits at the international entry point, not inside the region.
— GSMA, State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2026; World Bank, Remittance Prices Worldwide Issue 53, Q1 2025
The corridors that carry the most weight
The East African diaspora spans multiple sending countries. For Kenya, the United States is the largest source of remittances, contributing 51% of the country's total inflows (Central Bank of Kenya, 2025). The UK, the Gulf states, and Canada make up a significant share of the rest. For Uganda and Ethiopia, Gulf workers contribute heavily alongside the European and North American diaspora.
Each corridor carries a different cost and a different infrastructure path. The UK-to-Kenya corridor, at around 3.92%–4.8% depending on provider and send amount (World Bank, Remittance Prices Worldwide, 2024), is one of the more competitive corridors into sub-Saharan Africa, with thirteen registered providers offering over thirty payment options. Gulf-to-Kenya corridors tend to carry higher costs, passing through banking systems with fewer correspondent relationships. Ethiopia's corridors have historically been among the most expensive in the region, partly because of the limited number of providers with direct access to the local banking system.
The common thread across all of them is the same: value moves through a chain of intermediaries, each adding a fee, a day, and an exchange-rate step. The sender pays at the start. The recipient receives less than was sent and later than it was sent. Neither party can change that without changing the infrastructure beneath it.
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