Remita has launched a new mobile application that allows users to manage multiple bank accounts, make payments, transfer funds across African countries and access other financial services from a single platform.
Deremi Atanda, managing director of Remita, led the team to the Nigeria Fintech Week on Wednesday where the new Remita Mobile App was launched, describing the platform as a major step in the company’s expansion from enterprise payments into the consumer and retail financial services market.
Three Things to Know About the new Remita Mobile App
1. One place for monitoring bank accounts
Multi-bank capability enables you to monitor your bank accounts and manage your disparate financial activities through a single interface.
2. A lot more than just payments
Moves beyond basic funds transfer and bills payment and the need for multiple apps to do other things – recurring payments, instant African funds transfer, shares and stocks investment, loans marketplace, local and international flight tickets, event tickets, micro pensions, financial management toolkit.
3. An expanding financial ecosystem
The app is the foundation of a broader consumer financial ecosystem. Additional capabilities are lined up for progressive introduction, extending what users can manage on Remita.
According to Atanda, the app enables users to see and manage their different bank accounts from one platform, regardless of where their funds are held.
“The Remita app that changes how people manage their finances. For the first time at scale, organisations or enterprises experience being able to see all bank accounts on a single app. Every Nigerian, irrespective of where they bank or keep their funds can begin to manage their funds from a single place,” he said.
Atanda noted that the app allows users to monitor account balances, initiate transactions and use funds across different accounts without having to move between multiple financial applications.
Another primary feature of the app is its cross-border capability. The MD noted that Remita is working with the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) to enable users to transfer funds to bank accounts across Africa.
“One of the very exciting things we’re bringing forward is that you can pay into any African bank account today because we’re working with parts of the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System.“Right from the Remita app, you will be able to debit any of your local bank accounts securely based on the relationships you have with your banks and transfer to anyone in Africa.”
The app also goes beyond payments and transfers to provide access to other financial services, including credit, investments, bill payments, airline ticket purchases and savings.
The MD described the platform as “financial management in a box,” saying users could fund different activities from different bank accounts without having to use separate applications.
He highlighted the application’s use of artificial intelligence to help users track expenses, monitor budgets and receive alerts based on their financial activities.
Atanda explained that users would also be able to automate recurring transactions, including electricity payments, transfers to family members and regular savings.
In his words, the app is designed to bring together several financial services while using data and identity infrastructure to expand access to credit and other services.
“A very interesting aspect of that is democratising credit. So it means from the Remita loans market, you can have access to several loans and compare them in real time,” he said.
Atanda said Remita’s move into the consumer market was driven by two decades of experience in the payments industry and growing demand for a single platform that could handle multiple financial needs.
He disclosed that the app had already recorded thousands of users and early adopters during its pre-release phase, despite having no formal promotion or launch at the time.
Remita expects significant growth in adoption over the next six months, particularly in local instant transfers and Pan-African transactions.
The company also plans to expand the platform to additional services, including micropensions and credit products.
According to him, Remita’s existing infrastructure would support the expected growth, noting that the company already processes more than N100 trillion annually, largely through corporate payments.
“Based on what we do largely in the corporate space today, we process in excess of 100 trillion every year. And that’s largely driven by corporate payments,” he said.
He added that Remita’s infrastructure had been built to handle large-scale transactions involving banks and government institutions, giving the company confidence in its ability to scale the new consumer-focused platform.
“In the background, carrying enterprise transactions. All the bank’s transactions, all the government transactions ride on our infrastructure,” Atanda said.
The new app seeks to extend that infrastructure and its two decades of payments experience directly to consumers, while expanding its services beyond conventional payments into larger digital financial management across Nigeria and Africa.
Meanwhile, the company said interactions with consumers showed that convenience has become a major factor in how Nigerians use financial services, with users preferring solutions that can be completed entirely on their mobile phones.
On concerns about network reliability, the company explained that the mobile app is built on Remita’s existing payment infrastructure, which already processes trillions of naira in transactions.
Summary of Key Capabilities
The Remita app enables users to:
- Connect and view supported bank accounts in one place
- Make local and African instant transfers
- Set up and manage recurring payments
- Invest in shares and stocks
- Compare many loan offerings and settle for the best
- Create budgets and track spending
- Get local and international flight tickets
- Get tickets for nationwide events
- Pay for electricity, airtime, data, cable TV and other bills
- Make RRR payments and get instant receipts
- Request payments through supported digital channels
- View transaction histories and retrieve payment records and receipts