The three shapes of no-bank recipient
They have a mobile phone with a wallet on it
M-Pesa in Kenya. GCash or Maya in the Philippines. JazzCash, Easypaisa or SadaPay in Pakistan. bKash in Bangladesh. MTN MoMo or Airtel Money in many African countries. Opay, PalmPay or Moniepoint in Nigeria (though Nigeria has its own cash-pickup rule; see below). This is the route to reach for first. The money stays in the wallet until they need it. Cashing it out at an agent has its own fee, walked through in what it costs to turn the mobile-money SMS into cash.
Apps that pay into wallets include Wise, Sendwave, Remitly and WorldRemit, but not every app pays every wallet named here. Sendwave, for example, sends to bank accounts in Nigeria, not to wallets. Check that the wallet is on the list in the app before you pay. Wise does no cash pickup anywhere, so do not reach for it if the recipient will need physical cash; it is the app for the wallet route only.
They can travel to an agent booth and hold a photo ID
Cash pickup. The big counter networks are MoneyGram, Western Union and Ria. Remitly says it has about 490,000 cash pickup locations. WorldRemit runs cash pickup in the Philippines through BDO, Cebuana, PSBank and M Lhuillier. Cash pickup needs a trip to an agent, but it works when the recipient has no phone wallet at all. Nigeria has its own rules on cash; see below.
They live somewhere with no wallet in reach and cannot travel
This is the hardest case and there is no clever answer for it. The route is either courier home-delivery (Remitly's US site offers this in the Philippines, Vietnam and the Dominican Republic, so check that the app shows it before you count on it from the UK) or a trusted family member with a wallet who can cash out and physically hand the money over. Both add a link where the money passes through a person, and can be delayed or short. Name that risk to the person you are sending on behalf of, before you send.
What the recipient must have on the day
For a mobile-money wallet: the wallet must be registered in the recipient's own name. Send to their number, not someone else's "just to try". In Kenya, the M-Pesa account is tied to the Safaricom SIM the recipient already holds. In Pakistan, JazzCash and Easypaisa each need the recipient's CNIC and a Pakistan mobile number. Some sending apps ask for the wallet's IBAN. SadaPay shows it in its own app.
For cash pickup: the recipient walks in with a government photo ID and the transfer reference number. Check in the app which IDs the counter takes. The recipient must be able to travel to the agent booth during opening hours and present the ID in person.
The name you put on the transfer must match the name on the recipient's ID exactly. MoneyGram says many of its agents will not pay out if the name on the ID does not match exactly. If your grandmother's ID says "Adaeze Grace Okonkwo" and you sent to "Grace", the agent can refuse to pay. Use the ID name, not the family name.
The two rules that catch UK senders
Nigeria
Check the amount first. Under Central Bank of Nigeria guidelines of 31 January 2024, a transfer through a money transfer company worth more than $200 must be paid into an account, not in cash. $200 was about £150 on 4 November 2026. Payout is in naira. Cash pickup is not a route for about £150 or more.
Western Union also says it pays cash in Nigeria only to a receiver with a bank account. A receiver without one can use a referee, a person with a bank account in Nigeria who can confirm who they are. Before you use another firm for cash, ask if the same rule applies.
If your recipient has no bank account, a wallet (Opay, PalmPay, Moniepoint) can work. A wallet has limits too. The lower levels of wallet limit what a wallet can hold, so a send can be too big, more so if the wallet already has money in it. Before you send, ask your family member what level their wallet is. Also ask the wallet firm if the wallet can take money from abroad. The limits are in the Nigeria guide.
India
Under the Reserve Bank of India's Money Transfer Service Scheme (MTSS), cash pickup is capped at ₹50,000 per transaction. Anything above that is paid by cheque, demand draft, payment order, or direct to a bank account. Each recipient is also capped at 30 transfers per calendar year, and each transaction is capped at USD 2,500. ₹50,000 was about £390 on 4 November 2026. If your family member in India has no bank account, plan for the extra step above that amount.
The pickup window closes
If the money is sent for cash pickup and the recipient does not turn up, the transfer sits at the operator for a limited time. MoneyGram holds for 90 days and then the transfer expires; after that MoneyGram has no obligation to disburse. Western Union says 90 days, and says the time can vary by place. The money is not lost when the window ends: as sender you can still ask for a refund, but you have to act. If you cancel a MoneyGram transfer at the agent where you sent it, the refund is paid in cash. If you cancel online, MoneyGram sends the refund to your card within 10 business days, and it can take longer to arrive.
Set a note in your phone the day you send.
If it went wrong at the counter
The fix starts with you, the sender, not with the agent at the counter. Western Union has a form for changing the receiver's name, and you or the recipient can call its customer care to renew a transfer. MoneyGram asks you to check the name against the ID and to contact it if the problem stays. You can cancel a MoneyGram transfer until the money is collected. Do it before the window closes.
For questions on the receiver's side once the money has arrived, see Boki's arrival coverage.
It covers the difference between a wallet and a bank in is money in a mobile wallet the same as money in a bank, the four ways a receive side can quietly take a slice in does the person receiving pay something on an international transfer, and the country-by-country cash-out arithmetic in the mobile-money SMS-to-cash piece.
Corrections
- 2026-11-05: An earlier version of this page gave only the $200 limit for cash in Nigeria, so cash under about £150 read as open to a receiver with no bank account. Western Union says it pays cash in Nigeria only to a receiver with a bank account or a referee, and the page now says so. An earlier version also said the two lowest levels of wallet do not take £150 in a day. That was wrong: these levels limit what a wallet can hold, so a send can be too big, more so if the wallet already has money in it.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page did not say that a Nigerian wallet may not be able to take money from abroad. The Central Bank's 2013 rules bar international transfers at the lowest level and do not say how this applies to money paid in by a transfer app, so the page now says to ask the wallet firm first.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said a mobile wallet, even a basic one, works for £150 or more to Nigeria, and gave no wallet limit. The lower wallet levels limit what a wallet can hold, so the page now says to check the wallet level.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version said Wise, Sendwave, Remitly and WorldRemit pay into the wallets named here. Not every app pays every wallet, and Sendwave pays bank accounts in Nigeria, not wallets.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version said the app will ask for an IBAN for a Pakistan wallet. Only some apps do.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version said ₹50,000 was about £460, and that the Indian cash limit applied to a recipient with no bank account. It was about £390 on 4 November 2026, and the limit applies to any cash payment.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version said Western Union holds cash for 30 to 90 days and Ria for about the same. Western Union now says 90 days, which can vary by place, and we could not confirm Ria's period.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version said MoneyGram refunds take three to ten business days and a cash refund needs ID at an agent. MoneyGram says within 10 business days to a card, and in cash at the agent where you sent it.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version said MoneyGram, Western Union and Ria all let you change the name, extend the hold or cancel from the app, usually free, and that the agent cannot override a problem. We could confirm only the steps now on this page.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version said MoneyGram and Western Union always refuse a name that does not match, and that this is the most common refusal. MoneyGram says many of its agents will not pay, and we could not confirm the rest.
- 2026-11-04: We removed lines on wallets and cash pickup that we could not confirm: that wallets are the fastest and cheapest route and arrive in minutes, that cash pickup usually costs more, that a wrongly registered wallet is a lost payment, that Remitly's network is the biggest digital-first one in more than 130 countries, and that Wave runs cash pickup and home delivery.
- 2026-11-04: We also removed the lists of IDs for Nigeria, India, Kenya and Pakistan, the rate used for Nigerian payouts, and the line that unclaimed money goes to the state, because we could not confirm them.