Zepz, the cross-border payments group behind the SendWave and WorldRemit brands, has published a five-year behavioural study drawing on data from more than 5.5 million unique senders across its network between May 2021 and May 2026. The findings challenge several established assumptions about who sends remittances, how often, and why.

The headline finding is generational. Adults aged 25 to 34 now represent the largest single cohort of active senders on the Zepz network, accounting for 30% of unique users, with the 35 to 44 age group close behind at 27%. Together those two cohorts make up more than half of all senders. The 25 to 34 group more than doubled in number over the five-year period, a rate of growth the company describes as faster than any prior cohort. Interim chief executive Barrie Morris said the data reflects “a remittance economy in the middle of a genuine transformation.”

The gender shift

The report also tracks a sustained, year-on-year increase in the share of transactions initiated by women. Female senders reached 45.9% of all active users in 2025, up from a lower base in 2020. Among the 35 to 44 age group, women represent 49.9% of active senders, a level the report characterises as functional parity. The average gender gap in transfer value has narrowed from $16.51 per transaction five years ago to $6.42 in 2025. In several major send markets, including Italy, the US, Ireland, Germany and Canada, women now send more per transfer on average than men; the Italian figure shows women sending $25.58 more per transaction.

That trajectory broadly aligns with Migration Data Portal estimates that women now account for 48% of all international migrants globally, suggesting that financial behaviour is tracking a structural demographic shift rather than a product-specific effect.

Remitters as financial co-ordinators

Perhaps the most commercially significant finding concerns recipient complexity. Some 70.5% of Zepz customers now send to more than one recipient, up from 65.1% five years ago, and more than one in eight sends to recipients in more than one country, a 34% increase over the period. Transaction sizes remain predominantly small: 94.7% of transfers are below $250, and almost half fall below $50. Volume growth across the network averaged 12% over the past two years, with peaks of 35% in some periods, while average transfer values rose approximately 13%.

The data also shows deliberate timing behaviour: transfers cluster around the first five days of the month, consistent with salary cycles, and Friday is the busiest single day of the week. December and March are the strongest months by both volume and value, aligning with Christmas and the Ramadan and Eid periods.

Market context and competitive read-across

The broader cross-border payments market remains intensely competitive. Western Union and MoneyGram continue to hold large retail footprints, while digital-first challengers including Wise, Remitly and Zepz’s own brands compete primarily on pricing transparency and mobile experience. The Zepz data makes an implicit commercial argument: if remitters are managing multi-recipient, multi-country financial responsibilities on a monthly cadence, the product surface expands well beyond a single-transfer utility. Digital wallets that allow customers to hold balances and deploy them on their own schedule represent the next logical product layer, and the report explicitly signals that Zepz is moving in that direction.

That ambition carries regulatory weight. Wallet functionality that involves holding customer funds requires e-money or payment institution authorisation in most jurisdictions. In the UK, the FCA‘s safeguarding requirements for e-money institutions have tightened under ongoing Payment Services Regulation reviews, and similar obligations apply under PSD2 across the EU. Any expansion of wallet features will need to sit inside that framework, particularly given the FCA’s increased scrutiny of non-bank payment firms holding client money.

The report does not disclose revenue, market share or forward guidance. As a data-led research publication rather than a funding announcement, its primary function is positioning Zepz as a sophisticated interpreter of remittance behaviour at scale, a useful credential as the company continues to operate across a highly price-sensitive, trust-dependent market.

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