For most financial technology companies, the race for growth hinges on capturing the youngest, most digitally-native users. In the cross-border payments sector, that strategy is clearly paying off. According to a new report from Zepz, the parent company of Sendwave and WorldRemit, adults aged 25 to 34 are now the largest remittance cohort, accounting for 30 per cent of active users — a figure that has more than doubled over the five years to May 2026.
However, a closer look at the company’s proprietary data, drawn from over 5.5 million unique senders, reveals that the most structurally robust part of the business lies at the opposite end of the age spectrum. Users aged 55 and over are sending an average of 36.8 transfers a year. That equates to more than three per month, making them the most frequent and predictably active demographic on the network.
Consistency over volume
The sheer frequency of this older cohort suggests a deeper economic reality for cross-border fintechs: high volume does not always mean high margins. Nearly 94.7 per cent of all transfers processed across the Zepz network are under $250, with 45.3 per cent under $50. While the volume of transactions grew by an average of 12 per cent over the last two years, the real value for fintechs may lie not in chasing large one-off sums, but in retaining high-frequency, low-churn users who have integrated remittances into their routine financial planning.
The report notes that for the over-55s, sending money is not an occasional act, but a permanent fixture of their financial lives. Their sending patterns follow a clear rhythm — Friday is the busiest day of the week, and the highest-value transfers cluster in the first five days of the month, closely mapping onto global salary cycles.
A broadening, not a replacing, of the user base
This does not mean the older demographic is overtaking younger ones. Rather, the data points to a market that is broadening. The 25–34 group is entering the remittance economy earlier than any previous generation and is likely to remain active for decades. The 35–44 age bracket is close behind at 27 per cent, meaning these two groups combined now account for more than half of all active senders.
For fintechs, this creates a dual challenge: designing fast, mobile-first interfaces for Gen Z and Millennials while simultaneously building the trust infrastructure needed to sustain the multi-decade relationships of older users.
The shift toward parity in gender and geography
Alongside the generational data, the report highlights a steady shift in the gender breakdown of senders. The proportion of transactions made by women has risen every year since 2020, reaching 45.9 per cent in 2025. In the prime working-age group of 35 to 44, women now represent 49.9 per cent of active senders, nearing practical parity.
The gap in average send values is also closing. Five years ago, women sent an average of $16.51 less per transfer than men. By 2025, that gap had narrowed to $6.42. In several major send markets, including the United States, Ireland, Germany, and Canada, women now send more on average than men. Italy stands out most prominently, where women send $25.58 more per transfer than their male counterparts.
Managing networks rather than individual relationships
The report also challenges the outdated image of the remittance market as strictly one-to-one. Currently, 70.5 per cent of Zepz customers send money to more than one recipient, up from 65.1 per cent five years ago. Over one in eight users now send money to more than one country — a 34 per cent increase over the same period.
This diversification creates new product requirements. Users are not simply issuing isolated payments; they are actively coordinating support across extended households, siblings, and parents. The data suggests that timing is becoming more deliberate. While a large proportion of transfers are sent immediately, nearly a quarter are held in accounts for three to seven days before being dispatched. Users who hold balances for this period average deposit values of $334, compared to $214 for those who send immediately.
Implications for product strategy and loyalty
The financial implications of these findings are already shaping the industry’s approach to customer retention. The regularity of older senders, in particular, points to an opportunity for services to move beyond basic transaction processing. Loyalty and rewards programmes, which have historically been underutilised in the remittance sector, are starting to emerge. Sendwave, for instance, has introduced a points-based reward system that acknowledges cumulative sending behaviour rather than treating every transfer as an isolated exchange.
Zepz itself frames these insights as a prompt to evolve toward digital wallets and other flexible financial tools, allowing users to hold funds and decide when to deploy them. This move, it says, must continue to treat security as a foundational element rather than a regulatory checkbox. Fraud warnings and scam recognition tools are embedded into the product design to support users who rely on the platform as their primary cross-border financial infrastructure.
As the cross-border payments market matures, the data suggests that the untapped goldmine is not simply the sheer volume of new entrants — it is the sustained, complex, and highly predictable financial behaviours of an increasingly diversified user base. The winners in this space will be those that retain the older generation while successfully onboarding the younger one, across borders, recipients, and genders.