Rewire and Paysafe Team Up to Help Migrants Manage Their Cash

Africa and Asia migrant-focused cross-border financial services platform Rewire on Tuesday (April 26) teamed up with payments platform Paysafe to bring the offering to cash-reliant consumers in the U.K. and 16 countries in Europe, according to a joint press release.

Rewire’s financial inclusion is rooted in access to remittance services, local payment accounts (IBAN), debit cards, cross-border family accounts, insurances, bill payments and more. The partnership will integrate Paysafe’s eCash solution, Paysafecash, into the Rewire platform.

In addition to the U.K., the service is also rolling out in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.

“Partnering with Paysafe to incorporate Paysafecash as part of Rewire’s solution makes perfect sense as our customers are generally an underbanked population that need to digitize their cash in order to manage it on Rewire’s platform,” said Guy Kashtan, co-founder and CEO at Rewire, in the release.

“Paysafecash allows our customers to fund their accounts using cash, which is an essential aspect in extending the reach of our services and making them more accessible for these financially underserved communities,” he said. “Paysafecash’s extensive global network of payment locations makes it the ideal partner for us to support financial inclusion of migrant workers with easily accessible online services and fair fees, particularly for their cross-border needs.”

There are more than 200,000 Paysafecash payment locations in almost 30 countries and almost 90,000 payment locations in the 17 European countries where the Paysafecash deposit option will be available for Rewire customers.

“We are extremely pleased that our partnership with Rewire allows us to leverage the unique advantages of our Paysafecash payment solution to support migrant communities in Europe and make much-needed financial services more accessible,” said Udo Müller, CEO of Paysafe’s eCash division.

“When you complement our extensive network of payment locations with strong partners that provide essential services, you end up with a really impactful solution that answers the pain points of a significant portion of society,” he said.

Related: Africa FinTech Sector Continues Upward Trend, Payment Firms Continue to Dominate

FinTech-related deals increased by 30% to 50% last year, driven largely by so-called “mega rounds” — capital of $100 million or more raised by large, privately held FinTech unicorns.

These deals included Stripe’s acquisition of Nigeria-based firm Paystack to the acquisition of Africa-focused remittance firm Sendwave by U.K.’s WorldRemit.