Stock - Careem P2P
Careem has super-sized options available through the app with the buy of the Dubai startup. Image Credit: Supplied

Dubai: The ride-hailing and food delivery platform Careem is on a buying spree – its latest is the Dubai based money transfer platform Denarii. Key personnel from the latter will also be joining Careem, which recently acquired a cloud kitchen operator that focusses on corporate delivery services.

Denarii’s proprietary money transfer technology uses a single API call to enable fintechs like Careem Pay to facilitate quick - and affordable - international money transfer. Denarii also helps businesses by automating accounts payable and B2B payments. It was founded in 2019 by Jon Santillan and Walfrido Perez.

Careem Pay offers a digital wallet that stores real money for customers in the UAE as well as a peer-to-peer (P2P) transfer that enables customers to send, request and receive money using a phone number, personal QR code, or personal payment link. Access to international remittance services will round out Careem Pay’s payments offering.

“Denarii’s innovative API will accelerate our journey to offering simple and affordable international remittance services, adding to the wide variety of services already available through Careem Pay,” said Mudassir Sheikha, CEO and co-founder of Careem.

"Careem’s large network of customers, Captains and merchants, and decade of payments processing experience, will enable us to increase the impact of the money transfer technology we built through Denarii," said Santillan. 

Careem's gameplan
Careem Pay will use Denarii’s money transfer tech to connect customers and captains with remittance services from licensed providers. Careem already has a presence in "countries connecting some of the most active remittance corridors in the world such as the UAE, KSA and Pakistan," the statement said.

Remittances to the Middle East and North Africa region grew 7.6 per cent in 2021 to $61 billion while those to South Asia were 6.9 per cent higher to $157 billion.

"Digital financial services have an enormous total addressable market - valued at $2.8 trillion across payments, lending, GCC remittances, and financial services products including insurance," the statement said.