Why your exchange rate isn't the mid-market rate

Search "USD to NGN" and you get the mid-market rate — the midpoint between what banks buy and sell currency at when trading with each other, in blocks of millions of dollars. No consumer remittance service gives you that rate, including us, and anyone who claims to is hiding their margin somewhere else.

The real question is not "do you mark up the rate" — everyone does — it is "how much, and can I see it before I send." Payvio's margin is published on the rates page for every corridor we serve. If we raise it, that page changes first, and if you have a scheduled or repeat transfer we email you before the rate you locked in changes.

The other place cost hides is the receiving side: a correspondent bank clipping a percentage in transit, or a payout partner charging the recipient a fee nobody mentioned until the money arrives short. We pay out through licensed local partners directly, so the amount you lock in at send time is the amount that lands — no surprise deduction on the other end.

None of this makes us the cheapest option on every corridor every day; a competitor running a promotion that week might beat us. What we commit to is that our number is the real number, shown before you decide, not an estimate you find out was wrong after the money is gone.