Experiences from a CAB customer1 Nov 2023 10:32
i've seen some comments here that seemed unfounded about cab and i wanted to share a bit my experience. i worked 3 years ago for a customer of cab that does low cost remitances to africa, middle east and asia.
cab deals in countries which most financial institutions don't want to touch with a barge-pole and the few that do (other than cab) usually have higher fees. a good example is myanmar, cab managed the situation with a lot of care while the coup evolved, and both people and institutions were sanctioned. there was another situation (i can't recall if it was in mali) in which their currency suffered a lot during covid and some money transfer institutions raised their commissions very aggressively, while cab kept them in line rather than trying to fleece their customer. this gained cab a lot of kudos and is a reason why a good number of aid agencies use cab to transfer funds for their programs. someone accused the company of being ******, all i can say is that it helps that cab has people from the same cultures where they operate and some of those employees are on the ground spread across all the regions they operate.
i met a couple of the c-level folks and i got a really good impression from them. they had a clear vision of making easy, cheap, and safe to move money in and out of developing countries. and i'm quite sure the a good portion of the money from the ipo will be used to make cab more tech-savvy.
it's worth remembering that helios investments still owns 70% of the shares and owned cab since 2016. with the amount of scrutinity, i just cannot see the board playing any games other than being objetive