Zepz

Zepz is a UK-based cross-border payments company that operates WorldRemit and Sendwave — two of the world's leading consumer remittance brands — and in October 2025 launched the Sendwave Wallet, a USDC-denominated digital wallet built on Solana that enables near-instant, low-cost money transfers across more than 100 countries.

Background and Company History

WorldRemit was founded in 2010 by Ismail Ahmed, Catherine Wines, and Richard Igoe. Ahmed, a Somali entrepreneur who had worked for the United Nations, built the service after experiencing firsthand the excessive fees and friction of traditional remittance channels for migrants sending money home. WorldRemit launched as a fully digital alternative to cash-based money transfer operators, eventually operating over 5,000 remittance corridors globally.

In February 2021, WorldRemit Group acquired Sendwave — a mobile-first remittance app focused on Africa and Asia — for approximately $500 million. Sendwave was founded in 2014 by Drew Durbin and Lincoln Quirk and had grown to serve over 400,000 users in key corridors from the United States and United Kingdom to Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, and the Philippines. Following the acquisition, the parent company rebranded as Zepz, while WorldRemit and Sendwave continued to operate as separate consumer-facing apps with distinct positioning.

As of 2025, Zepz serves over 11 million users across 150 countries and processed more than $17 billion in remittances in 2025 alone.

Core Products

WorldRemit is a mobile app and web service that lets users send money to bank accounts, mobile money wallets, and cash pickup locations in more than 130 countries within minutes. It is the larger of the two brands by geographic reach and operates across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific.

Sendwave is a stripped-down mobile app built for affordability, particularly favored for corridors to sub-Saharan Africa. It does not charge sender fees on most corridors, instead embedding its margin in the exchange rate. Sendwave has a loyal base among African diaspora communities in the US and UK.

Sendwave Wallet and Solana Integration

In October 2025, Zepz launched the Sendwave Wallet — a stablecoin-powered peer-to-peer transfer product built on Solana. The wallet allows users to open a digital dollar balance denominated in USDC, send funds to other users within the Sendwave network, and withdraw to local fiat currency through Zepz's existing payout partner network.

The choice of Solana reflects the blockchain's high throughput, sub-second finality, and low transaction fees — qualities that matter in a remittance context where margins are thin and user expectations around speed are high. Solana Foundation President Lily Liu cited Solana's "speed and scalability" as central to the rationale, and the Solana Foundation supported the initiative through a grant facilitated by Fireblocks.

The technical stack for the Sendwave Wallet draws on three specialist partners:

• Circle supplies the USDC infrastructure and settlement layer. Zepz had already integrated Circle's USDC into its backend operations from July 2025, with the Sendwave Wallet representing the consumer-facing deployment of that relationship.
• Portal provides the borderless wallet infrastructure — the custody, key management, and wallet primitives that power the on-chain balance.
• Fireblocks supplies treasury automation, wallet security, and multi-blockchain settlement operations, enabling Zepz to manage digital assets across its global network while meeting compliance requirements.

The wallet is available in over 100 countries, with a focus on the Global South — the populations that account for the largest share of global remittance flows and that have historically been underserved by expensive, slow correspondent banking rails.

Planned features beyond the initial launch include payment cards linked to the USDC balance, QR code payments, bill payment functionality, and deposit rewards.

Compliance and Risk Management

Zepz engaged TRM Labs beginning in April 2025 to design and implement the financial crime controls underpinning its stablecoin products. TRM Labs provides blockchain intelligence — real-time on-chain transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance tools. The integration monitors wallet activity in real time, flags patterns associated with illicit finance, and maintains regulatory compliance across the jurisdictions where the Sendwave Wallet operates.

This layer is substantive rather than cosmetic. Remittance companies operate in some of the most compliance-intensive corridors in financial services, and Zepz's existing regulated status across dozens of jurisdictions means the stablecoin wallet must meet the same standards as its traditional fiat products. The TRM Labs partnership was announced publicly in March 2026, after nearly a year of live integration.

Zepz itself holds money transmission licenses and regulatory approvals across its operating markets, and the Sendwave Wallet sits inside that existing regulatory framework rather than operating as a separate, unregulated product.

Funding and Investors

Zepz has raised significant capital to support its growth. In October 2024, the company closed a $267 million funding round led by Accel, LeapFrog Investments, TCV, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), with participation from Farallon Capital. In April 2025, it secured an additional $165 million in growth financing — a package from HSBC Innovation Banking UK and HSBC Private Credit comprising a $110 million revolving credit facility and a $55 million term loan. The April 2025 raise was structured to support expansion of the WorldRemit and Sendwave platforms and comes alongside the company's accelerating push into stablecoin-based settlement.

Total disclosed funding prior to these rounds exceeded $500 million when including the Sendwave acquisition.

Solana Ecosystem Fit

Zepz brings something uncommon to the Solana ecosystem: a regulated, consumer-facing remittance company with an established user base in the tens of millions and demonstrated ability to move compliance-sensitive financial flows across emerging markets.

Most stablecoin projects on Solana are built natively for crypto-native users. Zepz approaches from the opposite direction — its users are sending $200 to family in Nairobi or Accra, not trading tokens. Stablecoins are the settlement mechanism, not the product. This positions the Sendwave Wallet as a mainstream-first on-ramp for USDC on Solana, with transaction volume driven by actual remittance demand rather than speculative activity.

The breadth of Zepz's payout network — spanning mobile money systems like M-Pesa, local bank transfers, and cash pickup points — also means USDC received on Solana can be converted into locally usable funds without the recipient needing any crypto infrastructure of their own.

For Solana specifically, Zepz represents a test case for whether the chain's technical properties — speed, cost, programmability — translate into a competitive advantage in real-world, high-frequency, small-value cross-border payments at institutional scale.