PayAngel lets diaspora pay schools, hospitals directly, cutting out middlemen
Jones Amegbor created PayAngel after a diverted tuition payment cost a relative their university place, realising that sending money home does not guarantee it reaches the intended school or hospital. Launched in 2013, PayAngel now processes over $450 million by letting diaspora users pay verified institutions—schools, hospitals, insurers, contractors—directly through its app, removing the need to trust relatives to forward funds.
This matters because Africa received $100 billion in remittances in 2023, yet much of that money is diverted or delayed after arrival. PayAngel's Direct-to-Merchant Remittances (D2MR) lets senders select an onboarded institution, pay using a unique reference like a student or hospital ID, and have the money arrive without intermediaries. Its RemitCare product gives free life and hospitalisation cover to beneficiaries when senders transfer at least £100 a month, rolling over as long as qualifying transfers continue. PayAngel Business also enables African SMEs to collect payments from diaspora customers in one reconciled dashboard.
The company operates in 22 countries across four continents, serves more than 100,000 active remitters, and holds regulatory approval in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and Ghana, with a Visa partnership to ease cross-border moves. It earns revenue from foreign-exchange spreads and fees for its business product, posting an annualised run-rate of about $4 million. With the guarantee that funds land where intended, will you use PayAngel to pay schools, hospitals or bills directly instead of sending cash through family?