If you send money from the UK to Jamaica, the cheapest way to send £100 or £250 into an NCB or Scotiabank Jamaica account is Remitly. On the numbers pulled for this piece, it delivered about 1,795 Jamaican dollars more on £100 than Wise did on the same £100, worth about £8.30. On £250 the gap was 3,164 Jamaican dollars, or about £14.66. New Remitly customers get a bigger one-off gain on the first send, and after that the everyday rate is still the best regular price on this route.
That is not the whole picture. A lot of Jamaican families in the UK still walk into a Western Union counter every week because that is where the money has been sent from since the sixties, and because it comes out as cash in someone’s hand at a counter on the island. This piece has the number for what an app saves you against that. It does not pretend the counter is the wrong answer for the family that has used it for forty years.
What £100 to NCB actually arrives as
For a £100 send from the UK to a bank account in Jamaica. The real exchange rate at the time of writing is 215.78 Jamaican dollars to the pound. That is the number Google shows and the one to compare every provider against. The date these numbers were pulled is at the top of this page under “verified”.
| App | £100 arrives as | Visible fee | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Remitly (first send, new customer) | JMD 21,893 | £0 | Best number this table can show, but only once. Rate of 218.93 Jamaican dollars per pound, above the real rate. Capped at £250 on the first send. |
| Remitly (everyday, after first send) | JMD 20,877 | £1.99 | Best regular price. Rate of 212.97 Jamaican dollars per pound, about 1.3 percent below the real rate. |
| Xoom (owned by PayPal) | JMD 19,971 | £2.99 | The fee looks small; the rate is where the cost lives. Rate of 205.87 Jamaican dollars per pound, about 4.6 percent below the real rate. Total cost on £100 is about £7.45. |
| Wise | JMD 19,082 | £11.57 | The rate is the real one, but the fee is high on this route. Delivery takes about six days. |
Rates were pulled from each provider’s live feed. Wise’s number is from Wise’s own price feed. Xoom’s number is from Wise’s price comparison. Remitly’s numbers are from Remitly’s own UK page for Jamaica.
Sendwave, WorldRemit, MoneyGram and Western Union do not publish their rate for Jamaica on a page you can check ahead of time. To see what they charge, you have to open the app, type the amount, and read the number. If you already use one of them, do that side by side with Remitly before you send.
What £250 to NCB actually arrives as
Same real exchange rate of 215.78 Jamaican dollars per pound.
| App | £250 arrives as | Visible fee | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Remitly (first send, new customer) | JMD 54,733 | £0 | The £250 first-send cap fits this size exactly. After this, the everyday rate applies. |
| Remitly (everyday) | JMD 52,820 | £1.99 | About 1,969 Jamaican dollars ahead of Xoom, worth about £9.12 on the same £250. |
| Xoom | JMD 50,851 | £2.99 | Total cost on £250 is about £14.35. |
| Wise | JMD 49,656 | £19.88 | Delivery takes about six days on £250. |
The picture on £250 is the same as on £100. Remitly is the best regular answer, Wise is the wrong tool on this route, and Xoom sits between them with the real cost hidden in the rate.
Why Wise is not the answer on Jamaica
If you know Wise from sending to Kenya or the Philippines, this table will look wrong. Wise is normally the app you open. On the UK-to-Jamaica route it is not.
The reason shows up in the delivery time. Wise’s own quote says the money arrives in about six days. That is because Wise sends to Jamaica on the old bank-to-bank international system, the same one your UK high-street bank uses to move money overseas, rather than on a fast local link. On its bigger routes like Kenya, India or the Philippines, Wise has that fast link and the money lands in seconds. On Jamaica it does not. That is why the fee is £11.57 on £100 and £19.88 on £250. The exchange rate is still the real one. It is just that a big flat fee and a six-day wait eat any saving on the rate.
For most family transfers to Jamaica, this makes Wise the second-choice app behind Remitly on price and speed. Wise is still worth having installed as a second app for other countries. But on this route, Remitly is the one to open.
The Western Union counter, without the lecture
A lot of Jamaican families in Brixton, Peckham, Handsworth and Moss Side send £50 or £100 through a Western Union counter every week. Often it is at the counter in a Caribbean grocer or a corner shop, behind the perspex, run by a shopkeeper who has been doing it for years. The person on the other end walks into a counter in Kingston, Montego Bay or Mandeville and collects cash the same day.
That is a real service, and for a lot of senders it is the right one. It works for a grandmother in Portmore who does not use online banking. It works for a family member without a Jamaican bank account. It works when someone needs the cash in a hand today.
Western Union does not publish its rate for Jamaica on a stable page you can check before you go. The rate is on the screen at the counter or in the app when you type in the amount, and it changes with the payment method and the day.
Two things to do before you hand over the money. First, ask what rate they are giving you today, in Jamaican dollars per pound, and write it down. Second, on your phone, search “GBP to JMD” and look at the Google rate. The gap between the two, times your £100, is the amount Western Union is keeping in the rate, on top of the visible fee. Add the fee and the gap together and that is the real cost of the send.
Is it worth switching apps to save two pounds per send
A common weekly send is £50, going into a family member’s bank account. Do the check above at the counter, then compare to Remitly.
On Remitly, a £50 send at 212.97 Jamaican dollars per pound with a £1.99 fee deducted first arrives as about 10,225 Jamaican dollars. Against the real rate that is about £2.60 lost to the fee and the small rate gap. Over a year of weekly sends that is 52 times £2.60, or about £135.
If your counter is costing you £5 per £50 send once the fee and rate gap are added together, that is 52 times £5, or £260 a year. Switching to Remitly saves you about £125 in that case. If your counter is costing you £3 per send, the switch saves you about £20 a year. The check above tells you which one you are looking at.
Two things to weigh before you switch. First, whoever is receiving the money needs a Jamaican bank account. If she only takes cash, the Remitly maths does not apply and you are back at the counter. Second, if the counter is the aunt who has been running it for twenty years and knows your family, the switch is a bigger decision than the number. That is fine. The number is here for the reader who wants it.
Lasco and the informal cash side
Some senders use Lasco or a similar smaller Jamaica payout network for cash pickup. It is not a bank. It works because there are small offices in towns where a bank branch is a bus ride away. The cash comes out at a counter, no different in shape from Western Union.
The trade-off is that the paper trail is thinner on both ends. If a send bounces, the recovery is harder than with a named bank on the receive side. If your recipient needs a large one-off amount, or the money is for a school fee or a hospital bill, a bank account is the tidier answer. If your recipient only has that path, use it and check the numbers the same way as Western Union: what rate today, and what does Google show.
What to open
For a regular send to a Jamaican bank account, Remitly. On the first send, up to £250, it is the best number on any table shown here. After that its everyday rate is still ahead of Wise and Xoom.
Do not open Wise for Jamaica unless you are already inside its app for another country and need to send £100 or £200 today. On this route Wise is expensive and slow.
If you use Western Union for cash pickup because that is what your recipient needs, keep using it. Ask what rate they are giving you today, in Jamaican dollars per pound, and write it down against the Google rate before you send. If the gap is large and your recipient can take a bank transfer, Remitly saves you a meaningful amount over a year.