Sendwave is the app to open when the money needs to land on a phone in Ghana, Kenya or Senegal, and it needs to be there in seconds. The send is free on the fee line. The cost is inside the rate: a small margin baked into the exchange rate that most senders never notice, because they were told the transfer was free. On the routes it was built for, that quiet margin is usually still cheaper than any other app that will actually deliver to a mobile-money wallet. On some other sends, and Nigeria is the clearest one, another app lands more.
Here is when Sendwave is genuinely the app to open, and when to open something else.
When Sendwave is the right app
Open Sendwave when the destination is a phone rather than a bank account, and any of the following is true.
- The receiver in Kenya holds their money on M-Pesa and wants the shillings on the phone, not in a bank queue.
- The receiver in Ghana uses MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) and the money is needed the same afternoon.
- The receiver in Senegal is on the Wave wallet and the send is 200 to 500 pounds.
On all three, Sendwave lands the money direct in the mobile-money wallet on the receiver’s phone, usually in seconds, with no fee on the fee line. The rate you get is a little worse than the real exchange rate, the one you would find on Google if you searched it right now. On the main African mobile-money routes that gap is typically around one and a half percent. On a 200 pound send that is about three pounds of hidden cost. On many weeks that is still less than the visible fee on Wise for the same amount, and Wise cannot land in an M-Pesa or MTN wallet at all.
Speed is real. Mobile money moves between the two phones in the background, so on Kenya M-Pesa and Ghana MoMo the shillings and cedis usually appear on the phone by the time the sender puts the app down. If the money is needed while the receiver is standing at a market stall or a school gate, that is the whole point.
When to open something else
Change the destination, the country or the amount, and Sendwave is not the right app.
Kenya into a bank account, not M-Pesa. Wise lands the shillings direct into a Kenyan bank account in seconds, at the real exchange rate, with a small visible fee on the fee line. A few zero-fee apps sometimes land a little more on the same bank route, at the cost of a slightly worse rate. If the receiver has a working Kenyan bank account and does not need the money on the phone, Wise is the app to open, and the maths is easy to check on the send screen. For what each app actually put into a Kenyan account on a recent send, see the most recent Friday number for Kenya.
Ghana into a bank account. Same logic. Wise lands the cedis direct into a Ghanaian bank account at the real exchange rate with a small visible fee. Wise’s own delivery estimate on Ghana bank sends can run longer than the seconds it takes on Kenya or Nigeria bank sends. If the money is needed inside the day and the receiver has a MoMo wallet, Sendwave is quicker. If the money is not needed immediately and the receiver has a bank account, Wise is fine.
Nigeria on small pounds sends. Sendwave is active in Nigeria and works, but on Nigeria specifically the maths often favours another app. Wise puts the real naira rate on the screen with a small visible fee. LemFi, one of the specialist Nigeria apps UK senders reach for, often quotes a naira rate close to the CBN official rate at no visible fee. On many weeks both land more naira on 200 to 500 pounds than Sendwave does on the same amount. Check LemFi and Wise on the same amount before you press send. For what each app actually put into a Nigerian account on a recent send, see the most recent Friday number for Nigeria.
Any send over about 500 pounds. The “no fee” pitch reads best on small sends. Wise’s fee is a small fixed part plus a small percentage of the amount, and the percentage stays small even on big sends. Sendwave’s rate margin, by contrast, is a percentage of the whole amount all the way up. On 5,000 pounds a rate margin of one and a half percent is about 75 pounds of hidden cost, and the visible Wise fee usually comes in below that on the main African routes Sendwave was built for and well below it on Nigeria. The bigger the send, the more the “no fee” line quietly costs the sender. Above about 500 pounds, open Wise on the same amount and compare what actually arrives on the other side.
Cash in hand at a village agent. No mobile-money app is going to put paper money into a family member’s hand in a place that only has a Western Union or MoneyGram counter for miles. If that is the send, use the Post Office counter, which is Western Union behind a Post Office logo, or Western Union directly.
The one thing to do before every Sendwave send
Sendwave does not publish its rate on a public page the way Wise publishes its fee on the send screen. The only place the rate lives is inside the Sendwave app at the moment of the send, on the specific amount the sender is about to send. That means the check is easy to skip and easy to do.
Open Sendwave and Wise side by side on the phone. Type the same amount into both. Read the shillings, cedis or francs that each app says will arrive on the other side. Send with the one that puts more of them there. The maths is not stable across weeks; the answer for last month is not the answer for this Sunday night.
On Kenya M-Pesa, Ghana MoMo and Senegal Wave that check will usually pick Sendwave, because the other apps either cannot deliver to the wallet or land less after their own fee. On Nigeria the check will usually pick Wise or LemFi, not Sendwave. Doing the check every time is the whole difference between “free” and cheap.
Where your money sits
Sendwave in the UK is part of the Zepz Group, the same parent that owns WorldRemit. Money you send through the app is handled by the UK company inside the group that holds the licence from the Financial Conduct Authority. It is not a UK bank. Your money sits in separate accounts at partner banks that hold only customer money, not the company’s own, but it is not covered by the UK bank compensation scheme the way money sitting in a normal UK bank account is. In practice this is the same shape as Wise, TransferGo and every other non-bank money-transfer app in the UK. Worth knowing, not worth losing sleep over.
The verdict
For a UK-to-Africa send that needs to land on a phone in Ghana, Kenya or Senegal, in seconds, on 200 to 500 pounds, Sendwave is the app to open. The fee is genuinely zero on the fee line, the rate margin is small on the sends it was built for, and the mobile-money delivery is what the receiver actually wants.
For a bank-to-bank send in Kenya or Ghana, open Wise. For Nigeria on small pounds sends, check Wise and LemFi first. For anything over about 500 pounds, put Wise on the same amount side by side and compare what actually arrives.
Whichever app is used, the number that matters is the shillings, cedis or francs that arrive in the other account. Open two apps, type the same amount into both, and send with the one that puts more of them there.
Corrections
- 2026-07-27: Removed dated corridor numbers per the evergreen rule (PROVIDER-REVIEWS.md §4). Specific arrival amounts on 200 pound sends (Wise landing about 33,912 shillings into a Kenyan bank; about 3,018 cedis into a Ghanaian bank; about 366,642 naira into Nigeria) and specific Wise fee figures on 5,000 pound sends were removed. Replaced with structural framing and cross-links to the most recent Friday number for each corridor where one exists.
- 2026-07-13: An earlier version of this page said Sendwave served Sierra Leone from the UK. It does not – Sendwave’s UK country list confirms 55 destinations and Sierra Leone is not one of them. Sierra Leone has been removed from the opening paragraph, the “when Sendwave is the right app” list, the check-before-you-send section and the verdict.
- 2026-07-13: An earlier version of this page listed AirtelTigo Money and Telecel Cash alongside MTN Mobile Money as supported Ghana wallets on Sendwave. Sendwave’s public Ghana pages only confirm MTN Mobile Money; the Ghana bullet has been narrowed to MTN MoMo.
- 2026-07-13: An earlier version of this page said the Senegal receiver could be on Wave or Free Money. Sendwave’s Senegal payout-methods page only confirms Wave. The Senegal bullet has been narrowed to Wave.
- 2026-07-13: An earlier version of this page said Wise’s fee on a 5,000 pound send was “somewhere around 15 to 20 pounds on most sends”. On the UK-to-Africa corridors this page compares, Wise’s fee on 5,000 pounds is around 50 pounds to Kenya or Ghana and about 28 to Nigeria today. The figure has been corrected.