Remitly charges customers a flat fee to cover the operating costs of each money transfer. Operating costs include the fees Remitly pays to local payout partners, which varies.

In one of our largest markets, Mexico, we were losing money on some transfers due to the high fees charged by local partners such as Elektra.

Given Elektra’s 50% market share in Mexico, this tradeoff posed a major business risk. To stay competitive, we decided to adopt a more granular fee structure—charging higher fees for high-cost partners and remain more competitive with lower-cost ones.

No one wants to hear this ↑

We were going to *raise our fee by 25%(!)* for half of our -Mexico customers - a market that generates over 20% of Remitly's revenue. The risk was immense.

‍

Plus, the existing customer experience was outdated and frictionful ↓

To validate our risk hypotheses and find answers, the team took a day trip to Yakima, WA, where there is a high population of Mexican migrants.

We conducted multiple rounds of rapid iterative prototype testing and interviews, both in controlled settings and in the wild. 

This project was all about listening to customers. Taking the care to really understand their perspectives—and then collaborating with the team to turn those insights into tangible product ideas—was so, so rewarding.

I loved creating reusable design patterns that could scale across the product and make a lasting impact. It reminded me how small, thoughtful experiences can lead to meaningful change.

Of course, I wish we had more time and resources to push for deeper, systemic improvements. One key learning was that customers don’t think about partners the way we do. Rather, they simply think about where they want to send money, such as a specific bank (Chase) or store (Walmart). Could we let customers search directly for those names, instead of asking them to choose a category that only makes sense internally? Maybe that’s where the next iteration begins.