Remitly vs Moneygram

What Remitly offers

Remitly provides overseas money transfer services to:

• Foreign Bank Accounts
• Cash pick up locations
• Mobile Money solutions (not available in all countries)

Remitly also offers a regular transfer service for people who need to do repeated international money transfers for the same amount each time. For example, monthly pensions.

Remitly does not offer

• Personal account management
• Travel debit cards
• Digital wallet services

Sending limits apply to customers for international money transfers.

MoneyGram gives individuals the ability to send money to most countries. 

What MoneyGram does

• International money transfers
• Cash pick-ups
• Mobile airtime and mobile wallet top ups
• Bill payments (US only)
• Transfers to inmates (US only)
• Regular transfers

What MoneyGram doesn’t do

• Personal account managers
• Forex hedging tools
• Digital wallets
• Unique local multi-currency accounts
• FX optimised travel cards

Remitly does not offer services for businesses. Their service is specialised and tailored for personal use.

MoneyGram provides very limited international money transfer services for businesses.

What MoneyGram for business offers 

• International money transfers
• Biller solutions
• Check processing
• Money order services

What MoneyGram for business doesn't do

• Risk management tools
• FX-optimized travel cards
• Unique local multi-currency accounts
• Dedicated currency managers
• Solutions for online sellers
• Accounting integration

Remitly fees are hidden within the exchange rate plus an additional fee on top. The fees on the exchange rate can be up to 2% of the transfer amount.

Additional fees apply for the transfer of funds. These can be simple for some countries and complex tiered fees for other countries. 

Economy Transfer Fee - Up to US$3.99

Express Transfer Fee - Between US$4.99 and US$99.99 for larger transfer amounts when receiving in USD.

MoneyGram fees

Exchange rate margin fee - This can be an additional 5% on top of real time exchange rates. The exchange rate margin fee increases with credit card payments and cash pickup of funds.

Additional fees - MoneyGram money transfer fees vary depending on where you and the recipient reside, the mode of payment, the transfer amount, and the transfer method.

• Cash pickup fees - Sending money to a bank account is typically more affordable than sending it to a cash pickup location. Sending cash for location pickup can cost an additional US$5.
• Credit / debit card payment fees - Paying through a bank transfer is usually more cost-effective than paying via a debit/credit card. Credit/debit card payments can cost between US$3 and $15. 

Registration - Remitly has a smooth account creation process. The website and mobile app are easy to use.

ID Verification - ID verification is not required for Tier 1 membership but this lowers the account sending limits. Tier 2 and 3 require increased proof of identification and source of funds. This can be a slower process. 

Transfer speed - Generally between 2 - 3 days upon payment.

Low minimum transfer limits - Send under $5

Low maximum transfer limits - Transfer limits are tiered based on your ID verification. Even with tier 3 ID verification. 

Low maximum sending limits - After full ID verification, you may only send up to $60,000 within 180 days. That’s low!

Signing up - Fairly easy, using either the MoneyGram app or website.

Payment options -  Bank account transfers, debit cards, credit cards and cash.

Speed - Up to 4 business days, and even more in some instances.

Multilingual website - Use the MoneyGram website in a number of languages.

Mobile apps - Available for iOS and Android.

Destination countries - Remitly specialises in sending to South American, Asian and African countries. Sending to more popular countries like the UK, USA and Canada is not supported.

Language support - Remilty supports 11 languages. They have local settlement accounts for sending funds to Remitly freely and easily in Singapore, Australia, Europe, UK and the USA.

Customer service - Customer support can be contacted by their website’s online chat service. Phone support is also available but only in English and Spanish between 3:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. PT.

Supported payment currencies - Accepts local currency payments from its customers in North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Oceania.

Supported destination currencies - MoneyGram lets you send money to more than 200 countries and territories, and offers payouts in local currencies.

Customer support - Local phone and chat support provided in several countries.

Transparency - Remitly’s transparency on fees is quite poor. They show the real exchange rate below their money transfer widget but the ‘received amount’ in the widget does not use that rate. Remitly uses the real exchange rate plus approximately 2%.

The additional fees for sending to a country can be found clearly within the help center. However, it is not shown to the customer going through the money transfer process until after a few steps.

Remitly & TrustPilot - Remilty’s lack of transparency on fees can be quite confusing which is reflected in many poor reviews on TrustPilot. Many poor Remitly reviews are about transparency on fees and sudden account closures or funds not arriving at their destination. 

Regulation - Regulated by financial regulatory bodies in different countries.

Average customer service - Gets a rating of Great on Trustpilot. However, several customer reviews highlight issues with the company's customer service.

Poor exchange rate transparency - The markup on existing exchange rates can be more than 5% for some currencies.