Remitly Canada Review

Remitly is one of the most popular digital money transfer apps in the world. It has one of the best exchange rates in the market and low fees.

We all have friends and family abroad. At times, we need to transfer money. Now, with the pandemic around, and with the online industry booming, transferring money is at prime time. You need the work to be done on time and money to be paid. 

What really matters when transferring the money is foreign exchange rates and charges. 

Ever Transfer service or app you use will show you a different exchange rate and fees, based on the amount you want to send. The money can be a direct deposit or can be picked up at a location. The choices are there, but the question really is, are you getting the best exchange rate? 

Remitly and TransferWise are both good to send money abroad, but which one is actually better than the other? 

To be exact, depending on the money you’re sending, the fees are charged and there are tiers based on your eligibility. Remitly has three a 3 tier system with limitations on the funds you can transfer per day, week, 30 days and 6 months. 

If you want to move to a higher tier in Remitly, you’ll have to provide the requested documents, which then undergoes a review with their team. If they find you eligible, you’ll increase the sending limits. 

I’m from India and use Remitly services to transfer money abroad. (Canada to India mostly or CAD->INR mostly)

In this article let’s take a closer look at everything Remitly has to offer and comparison with peers like TransferWise, CIBC Global money transfer for instance (I mean banks), skrill and others. Let’s get started. 

What Is Remitly? 

Remitly is a digital remittance service on a mission to make the money transfer process faster, affordable, and more transparent.

Because Remitly is a digital service without any physical locations, they’re able to keep costs low and pass those savings on to you. All while protecting your hard-earned money as it makes the journey back home.

The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, USA and its website launched in April 2012.

As you might know by now, just to re-reiterate it’s an American online and mobile payment service company that provides international money transfers. The company offers remittance services to nearly 50 different countries, with its most comprehensive coverage in Latin America and South Asia; other receiving countries covered are in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe.

The company was originally named Beamit and changed its name in August 2012 to Remitly.

To sum it up, Remitly is a digital service company for sending international money transfers from one country to another. Remitly is a company that accounted for four times the $135 billion dollars, the global foreign aid sent in 2015, according to the World Bank. It processes an average of $1 billion in transactions per year.

The company generates revenue by charging fees and by exchange rate markups.

Did you know that Remitly has received investment from Jeff Bezos’ company Bezos Expeditions and Eric Schmidt’s Tomorrow Ventures?

In October 2017, Remitly raised up to $115 million from PayU, another financial payments provider.

How Does Remitly Work?

Now that we know what Remitly is and it’s brief history, let’s look at how Remitly operates and the business (how they make money)

Like I said before, Remitly is a digital remittance service company that helps you send money abroad. 

You can send money abroad using Remitly by following the below steps: 

1. Check out the countries list you’d like to send money from and to

2. Then, download the Remitly app from Google Play Store or the App Store and create your Remitly account for free (your recipient doesn’t need one)

3. Gather all of the transfer details for your transfer, like how much you’d like to send and your recipient’s banking information

4. Send your transfer using the Remitly app or Remitly.com

5. That’s it, Remitly will take care of the rest, plus they’ll let you and your recipient know when the funds are delivered or ready to be picked up

Remitly Transfer Tips

• Take a look at Remitly’s transfer guides for useful information like the currencies and payment options they support for send country

• Read up on our first-time transfer offers and how to take advantage of them

• Understand the verification process, so you’re ready if we happen to need some additional information

• Learn how to track your transfer so you always know where it’s at and when it will arrive

Personal Opinion After Using Remitly

Now then here’s my personal opinion after nearly using Remitly for 2+ years. 

First of all, Remitly’s services are fast and outstanding. The more I want to praise their services, the less it is.

Let me list the Pros and Cons here for you from my personal experience. 

Pros Of Remitly In 2020

1. To be frank 99% of the time, I use Remitly to transfer funds from Canada to India through the iOS Remitly App. The app’s never really crashed to date. Easy and simple UI to use 

2. Why do we use Remitly in the first place? – To easily transfer money from point A – point B i.e. from my Canadian bank account to Indian account. Remitly does that perfectly and within seconds I get an update on the app. BTW did I forget to mention – Once you send the money and it’s on its way – You can see the constant update on the App until it’s delivered!

3. You can see all the past transactions you have made (all the money you have sent and received and to whom) – now that’s convenient isn’t it

4. You can also add all the recipients once and send money when you want. What I mean to say here is you don’t have to add the recipient details again once done. Now that is easy right. 

5. The app uses face ID to authenticate login so that’s easy logging in. 

6. You can anytime check the transfer rate for the currency you wish through the iOS widget. That way you always know if it’s the right time to send money or maybe wait for a few more days or plan ahead of time.

7. Also, there are three different program tiers (will talk about it in a bit), you are free to choose either the basic or the advanced third tier (depending on your needs)

8. Remitly’s back-end customer support is really good and document upload is pretty easy to upgrade to higher money sending limits and tiers 2 and 3. 

9. You also have two different money sending modes based on your needs and urgency – Express (Usually the transfer completes in a matter of minutes and your account in India is credited), Economy – Usually takes a couple of days for the money transfer to complete but the advantage is you’ll get better currency exchange rates. 

Cons Of Remitly In 2020

1. The exchange rate you get through Remitly might not be as per Google exchange rate or other money transfers like Transferwise, Global money transfer through CIBC bank account (if you are a CIBC bank customer) or Skrill. 

2. I actually tried upgrading to Tier 3 (yes I am a tier 2 right now), but somehow the documentation process and approval took a lot of time. After a couple of emails back and forth still I was not able to upgrade. Mind you I did provide all the documents as requested. 

3. This is not exactly a Con, but sometimes Canadian banks don’t approve the transfers (Remitly is not considered very authentic or what I am not sure). I had to call the bank customer care and get the blocker cleared to continue with the transfer. 

4. Once the Tier limit is reached, you might have to either upgrade your tier to continue sending money or wait for the money sending limit time-frame to expire. They usually have certain limits per 24 hours, 6 months and 1 year. 

Apart from the above-mentioned points, I don’t really find any other con with using Remitly. 

Like I said before, Pros and more than the Cons. And also, the cons are very minimal and can be resolved with a call or two. Had to list them because as you know nothing is perfect 😉 

Remitly Pricing & Case Study 

Here’s the link to Remitly Pricing for different countries as on the date of sending to see the exchange rates – https://www.remitly.com/ca/en/india/pricing

You can select the country you wish to send money to from the drop-down country list. I have selected India from the list as an example. 

Remitly Transfer Types

1. Express 

What’s the cost? When you’re in a hurry, send with Remitly Express using your debit card. Money arrives for free if you’re sending more than $500 ($1.99 when you send less). How fast? With Remitly Express, transfer time is within 4 banking hours. 20px;”>Credit card transfers have an additional 1% fee. 

2. Economy