Wave: flat **fee to send** - where incumbents charged closer to ten.

1%. flat **fee to send** - where incumbents charged closer to ten. Source: Wave; TriplePundit, 2025.

Wave: **monthly users** now move money on Wave across West Africa.

20M. **monthly users** now move money on Wave across West Africa. Source: Wave, 2025.

Wave: **agents** handle cash-in and cash-out in the neighbourhoods people live in.

150,000. **agents** handle cash-in and cash-out in the neighbourhoods people live in. Source: Wave, 2025.

capsrow / Africa

First Principles

The flat one-percent fee that reset the price of moving money

One percent to send. Nothing to deposit.

By capsrow · Updated July 2026

1%flat fee to send - where incumbents charged closer to ten.Source: Wave; TriplePundit, 2025.
20Mmonthly users now move money on Wave across West Africa.Source: Wave, 2025.
150,000agents handle cash-in and cash-out in the neighbourhoods people live in.Source: Wave, 2025.

In the Global South, you do not inherit the incumbent's price. You rebuild it from first principles and hand the difference to the customer.

Sending money in West Africa once cost as much as one coin in ten.

Dakar, 2018. Wave rebuilt the price from first principles and launched a wallet that charges a flat one percent to send and nothing to deposit or withdraw, where incumbents charged closer to ten. More than 20 million monthly users now move money on it through some 150,000 agents in the neighbourhoods they live in.

The decision that mattered: do not inherit the incumbent's fee, ask what a transfer should actually cost.

In the Global South, the difference goes back to the customer.

Source: Wave; TriplePundit, 2025.

Sources. Source: Wave; TriplePundit, 2025. Source: Wave, 2025.