TransferTo hires ex-National Bank chief for East Africa

A Singapore-based mobile remittance firm, TransferTo, has hired a former National Bank of Kenya (NBK) executive to lead its business operations in East Africa.

Sandra Hua Yao, the former new business development director at NBK, is now the vice-president, business development at TransferTo, business-to-business mobile payment platform.

TransferTo operates (leases out) a platform linking financial institutions with mobile money users. Its global partners include Paypal, Vodafone, WorldRemit, Sprint and Moneygram among other firms.

“Nairobi is an important move for us to demonstrate our commitment to providing best-in-class mobile money solutions and services to our African partners,” said Eric Barbier, the founder and chief executive of TransferTo.

TransferTo is an 11 year old company with presence in over 100 countries in Europe, Latin America, Africa and North America among others.

The firm has partnered with over 1,00 financial institutions and more than 400 mobile operators (including MTN, Tigo and Airtel) giving it access to over 4.5 billion phone users.

In February, TransferTo partnered with Vodafone to provide real-time international M-Pesa transfer. Vodafone has in recent years expanded M-Pesa to countries such as Tanzania, South Africa, Ghana, Lesotho, DRC, Egypt and Mozambique.

Ms Yao, who has previously worked at for Orange Money, will be based in Nairobi and will be in charge of the regional office where she will oversee strategic direction, the firms operations and forming of new partnerships.

“We will build on the simplicity and convenience of sending or receiving money on mobile phones to solve cross-border money transfer challenges,” Ms Yao said in a statement.