Hello World! Lemonade is now available in the UK - The Lemonade Stand

“The first quadrant of your income should be reserved for people who are/were pivotal to your growth as a person. Always make sure your people are okay.”

Last week, an article on the importance of providing for the family was shared on my timeline. For many Africans, it struck such a chord because financial security is not only for them but for their families as well. As Donovan Mitchell says, “you always want to make sure your family is set.”

What does that look like for the million Africans living in the U.K? It means sending money back to their families at home, pitching in for their nephew’s tuition, or making a downpayment on a health plan for the folks. It might be big projects, like completing that house in the village so that Detty December hits different. Anyone who works hard knows the joy of being able to be there for the family.

There’s just one snag: sending money home with the existing players can squeeze all of the joy out of the process. The current ways to send money home are expensive, slow, and inefficient. It might mean that your nephew may not be able to resume school on time because the tuition you sent three days ago hasn’t been cleared. Sometimes, it may mean that the people back at home have to borrow money while they wait.

We’ve always thought that there should be a better way, and that’s why we created the Lemonade app, to bring back the joy of sending support to the family. With instant, free transfers, your family and friends back home can receive money from you when they need it. With the Lemonade app, you’ll also not need to constantly monitor the exchange rates because we have the best exchange rates on the market.

These are pretty big promises, but rest easy, it’s a promise we’re already delivering on to thousands of African customers across North America. In under a year, we’ve become one of the most trusted ways for Africans across North America to send money home. Many people on the Lemonade team have always thought we should open up the Lemonade app to Africans in the U.K. It took a while to make that happen. We had to fulfil regulatory requirements to keep your money safe and ensure your transfers are instant like we promise.

So starting today, the Lemonade app is now live in the U.K. This means that Ghanaians, Kenyans, and Nigerians who live, work and study in the U.K can now send money home instantly and at the best rates on the market.

The Lemonade app will also offer much more, allowing users to quickly convert from one currency to another. This means you can convert Pounds to Cedis, Kenyan Shillings, and the Naira at the click of a button. Let’s put the joy back into showing up for family and friends.