Cross border payments fintech Azimo makes first profit

Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Cross border money transfer firm Azimo has made its first profit and set its sights on expansion in Asia.

Set up in 2012 Azimo enables people to make cross border transactions in seconds via a smart phone app at a considerably lower cost than traditional high street money transfer shops. I interviewed CEO and founder Michael Kent in March as part of a series of Fintech interviews.

In the 7 to 15 seconds it typically takes for a transfer to go through the Azimo time and complexity is removed by automating a number of steps. These are: initiate the payment – take the money – trade the money – check the compliance – terminate the payment.

The company has now transacted $2bn worth of transactions from more than a million people and hit its first profit in the second quarter 2019.

This is set to increase as Azimo extends its services. Before the end of 2019 it will enable customers to send money from Asia. It currently enables payments to Asia but not from. In May Azimo gained a European licence, through a Dutch subsidiary it set up, to protect its business as Brexit approaches made headlines in March as one of the only UK fintech companies to secure a European licence ahead of Brexit.

Kent has now moved to an executive chairman role. “The time is now right to hand over the role of CEO to my successor, Richard Ambrose (formerly COO), who has played a big part in the company’s development since he joined Azimo two years ago,” said Kent. “I will continue to work closely with him and the rest of the team to make sure that our success story continues.”