Reducing international remittance costs to The Gambia and deepening financial inclusion by expanding the utilization of digitalized international remittances and microfinance products
IFAD is partnering with APS under the PRIME Africa initiative to accelerate the uptake of digital remittance services among remittance recipients, and to remittance-linked microfinance services. The project focusses on rural recipients by increasing last mile agents’ interventions.
Project Category
Financial Inclusion Remittances & Digitalisation Rural Development
Target Groups:
All six regions in The Gambia, with a particular focus on rural areas outside the greater Banjul Area, and its corridors from France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden.
Programme
FFR Strategic Framework
PRIME Africa
Project Goals
To enhance the financial resilience and economic empowerment of remittance families through cost‑effective, digitalized remittance flows and innovations towards financial inclusion.
Implementing Partners
APS International Ltd is a leading remittance service provider (RSP) in The Gambia, holding a 12 per cent of the country’s market share and spread across 17 branches and 50 agents.
Geographic Target
Gambia
Outcomes
In 2023, APS’s online platform has been adapted to meet the needs of Gambian migrants in France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden, and integration of new payment channels in these new send markets.
During the first months of the project, migration to the new remittance app was finalized and APS started hiring representatives in six above-mentioned EU send countries targeted under the project.
Through the project, APS expanded its agent network by 256 agents, with 73 in rural areas, including 38 women agents, far beyond the original project goal of 100 agents. Agents were trained to provide existing and potential customers with details on the functionality and benefits of using APS’s digital wallet.
As a result, between February 2023 and January 2024, 28,000 new APS wallets were opened (and are active) from people living in rural areas (30% of all new wallet registrations) and 148,000 transactions have been made by those living in rural areas (18% of total transactions).
APS has integrated its remittance, wallet and micro-finance platforms to allow for remittance senders/beneficiaries to access their micro-finance services digitally.
9,500 MFI accounts have been opened in The Gambia, of which over 5,000 (53%) have been opened by women and nearly 2,000 accounts (19%) in rural areas.
The main accounts opened have been micro-savings (US$150,000), current accounts, loans, as well as 45 women’s groups.
Final expected beneficiaries: 7,500 remittance senders and receivers.
