Nigeria's $20bn Remittance Market Has a Hidden Layer (And It's Already Working)
Nigeria received close to $20 billion in remittances in 2024. Africa as a whole pulled in nearly $100 billion. Globally, remittance flows hit approximately $905 billion — with $685 billion directed at low and middle income countries. These are headline numbers. But they are also incomplete.
A sizable share of remittance activity never gets recorded. It happens informally, through peer-to-peer arrangements that have existed long before any fintech company put a name to them. In corridors like the UK to Nigeria or Canada to Africa, individuals with complementary needs — one abroad wanting to send money home, another needing foreign currency — simply match with each other. Funds settle locally in each country. No money actually crosses a border.
This is not a new phenomenon but a modern expression of an ancient idea where an exchange is based on mutual need. What is new is that it is now beginning to acquire infrastructure.
Marketplaces beat pipelines
Peer-to-peer remittance is distinct from traditional models in one critical way. Traditional systems operate like pipelines — money is pushed through controlled channels, with intermediaries extracting margin at every stage. The peer-to-peer model functions more like a marketplace. As more participants join, liquidity deepens and as more corridors open, matching becomes faster. The system optimises itself over time, driven by network effects rather than infrastructure spend.
For the Nigerian market specifically, where remittances in some years rival or exceed foreign direct investment, this distinction matters. The cost of sending money through traditional channels remains stubbornly high — typically between 6 and 8 percent for Africa-bound transfers. Peer-to-peer models, where users negotiate rates directly, create a more competitive environment that compresses those margins and keeps more value within household economies.
The regulatory picture is evolving too. Informal peer-to-peer flows have historically been difficult to track, which raises legitimate oversight concerns. But advances in digital identity, real-time payment rails, and compliance tooling are making it increasingly possible to bring structure to these transactions without eliminating their efficiency advantages.
Trust has always been the binding constraint. Informal systems depend on personal networks, which caps their scale. Building that trust into a platform — through identity verification, dispute resolution, and transparent liquidity management — is what unlocks the next phase of growth.
“Peer-to-peer remittance is the natural evolution of how value has always moved, now supercharged by digital trust and network effects. At Voye, we’re formalizing this hidden powerhouse, building the infrastructure for seamless, scalable P2P flows that empower users directly.”— Dapo Olatinsu, COO, Cede
Voye, a platform operating in the UK, Canada to Nigeria and Kenya corridors, is among the companies trying to formalise this layer. By focusing on visibility, tracking, and regulatory alignment, it is working to bring structure to a system that has long operated outside formal financial flows.
About Voye
Voye is pioneering peer-to-peer remittance infrastructure that formalizes informal value flows, powered by Cede Technologies’ capabilities in global payments and settlement, treasury-as-a-service, risk and exposure management, and working capital & trade finance as its retail-facing solution. The platform allows money to move from Canada and the UK into Nigeria and Kenya, enabling diaspora users to send money home efficiently without traditional intermediaries.
About The Author
Global Payments coverage from the Cede editorial team and partners, focused on how infrastructure, trust, and data are reshaping cross-border finance.