Global telecommunications and media firm Millicom announced today the launch of sendmoney.tigo.com. Customers in UK, European Union and Canada can send money to Tigo Pesa wallets in Tanzania in real time using the new remittance service.

There are plans to extend the service to include Tigo Cash wallets in other African countries.

Announcing the launch in London today, Greg Reeve, General Manager, Mobile Financial Services said that Tigo's sendmoney.tigo.com will make transactions convenient, fast and secure for the Tanzania diaspora living in UK, European Union and Canada.

In a statement Tigo said sendmoney.tigo.com provides the same security standards as banks, with payments being processed through Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode, and "allows users to receive transfers safely and quickly straight into their Tigo Pesa wallets."

"With one of the lowest transaction fees in the market, lower than any bank, sendmoney.tigo.com is one of the most safe and convenient ways to send remittances to Tanzania," the company added.

The World Bank has acknowledged Tanzania as a main recipient market for international remittances, with a total of US$64 million of transfers from Tanzanians living abroad in 2014 alone, according to Tigo.

Reeve said: "Historically customers had to travel long distances and carry large amounts of cash whenever they received money from abroad, an inconvenient and risky process. With the expansion of mobile remittances and services like sendmoney.tigo.com, this is no longer the case. Our vision is to expand services for our customers to fully benefit from their Tigo Pesa wallets."

In February this year Millicom announced after having reached an agreement with Vodacom's M-Pesa service, Tigo Pesa customers were the first in Africa to transact with users of all the East African country's mobile money networks.

At the time Millicom's Executive Vice President for Africa, Arthur Bastings, said "With Tigo Pesa customers will now have Africa's first universal mobile money exchange system. They will be able to safely and securely transact with millions more people across the country. It's another first for Tigo Pesa and Tanzania.

"Following the success of the service with Airtel and Zantel, we hope many more Tanzanians will choose mobile money so that everyone benefits and we can extend financial inclusion even further. We also intend to pioneer similar agreements with networks elsewhere."