Strategic alliance combines Rwanda’s most trusted diaspora brand with Europe’s first Remittance-as-a-Service platform giving tens of thousands of Rwandans across the EU a faster, cheaper way to send money home.

Belmoney, Europe’s first Remittance-as-a-Service (RaaS) provider, today announced a strategic partnership with RwandaCash, the leading financial services provider for the Rwandan diaspora. The partnership transforms RwandaCash from a Belgian-licensed operator into a fully EU-enabled digital remittance platform powered by Belmoney’s regulated infrastructure, PSD2 licensing, and API-first technology stack.

A $554 Million Lifeline, Still Too Expensive

Remittances are far more than wire transfers. For Rwanda, they represent one of the most significant sources of external finance reaching a record $554 million in 2023 and accounting for approximately 3.6% of GDP, according to the World Bank. These funds directly sustain households, finance education, and seed local enterprise across the country.

Yet sending money to East Africa remains prohibitively costly. In Q1 2025, the average cost of sending $200 to East Africa stood at 9.9% more than three times the United Nations SDG 10.c target of 3%. For the estimated 50,000+ Rwandans residing across the European Union with Belgium alone home to roughly 30,000 people of Rwandan origin every percentage point lost to fees is money that never reaches the families who need it most.

What Changes with This Partnership

Through a single API integration, RwandaCash now gains access to Belmoney’s full European payment infrastructure: PSD2-compliant payment collection across the entire Eurozone, automated AML/KYC compliance through Belmoney’s regulated framework, and real-time FX conversion. The result is a seamless, digital-first experience that replaces the fragmented, high-cost channels that have long defined this corridor.

For RwandaCash, the impact is transformational. The company moves beyond the constraints of its previous Belgian licenses to operate as a pan-European platform without the years-long regulatory burden of obtaining licenses in each member state. For users, it means faster transfers, lower fees, and higher success rates than legacy infrastructure could deliver.

Scale, Not Just Reach

Backed by Belmoney’s RaaS model, RwandaCash is targeting transaction volumes exceeding €5 million within its first year of expanded EU operations. The partnership also serves as a proof point for a broader thesis: that African fintech operators with deep community trust can achieve continental-scale reach when paired with European-regulated infrastructure. Belmoney never competes with its clients it builds the rails they run on.

Why This Matters Beyond Rwanda

Over $96 billion in remittances flowed into Africa in 2024 roughly double the level of overseas development assistance to the continent. Yet Africa remains the world’s most expensive region to send money to, with sub-Saharan corridors averaging nearly 9% in fees. The Belmoney–RwandaCash model demonstrates that regulated, API-driven infrastructure can break this cycle: lowering costs, increasing transparency, and ensuring more of every euro actually arrives.

Leadership Perspectives

“We built Belmoney so that companies like RwandaCash never have to choose between community expertise and European-grade compliance. This partnership proves the model: local trust, global infrastructure, zero competition with our clients. Together, we’re ensuring that more capital reaches the families who need it not the intermediaries along the way.”

— Bruno Pedras, Founder & CEO, Belmoney

“For fifteen years, we’ve earned the trust of our community one transfer at a time. Belmoney gives us the technology and regulatory backbone to honour that trust at a European scale. From Brussels to Berlin, from Paris to Lisbon, every Rwandan in the EU can now send money home through a platform that was made for them, by people who understand them. This is what ‘Made for Rwandans by Rwandans’ looks like in 2026.”

— Ramadhani Nsengiyumva, CEO, RwandaCash