Remitly Global Q1 Earnings Call Highlights

Key Points

• Remitly reported a record Q1 with $453 million in revenue (up 25% YoY), adjusted EBITDA of $102 million, GAAP net income of $49 million, and free cash flow of over $70 million, all above guidance.
• Growth was driven by volume and customer gains—send volume rose 37% to $22.1 billion and active customers grew 20% to over 9.6 million—boosted by U.S. regulatory shifts to online remittances and strong expansion in high-value senders (+73%) and Remitly Business (+30% q/q).
• Management is accelerating expansion beyond core remittances (receiver wallets, a card-based “send now, pay later” product) and embedding AI for efficiency, while returning capital via a $44 million buyback and raising full-year guidance to $1.96–$1.975 billion revenue and $370–$385 million adjusted EBITDA.

Remitly Global NASDAQ: RELY reported what executives repeatedly described as a record-setting first quarter of 2026, with revenue and profitability exceeding management’s guidance as the company benefited from strong customer acquisition, rising activity from higher-value segments, and continued cost discipline. On the earnings call, CEO Sebastian Gunningham—now roughly 90 days into the role—outlined operating priorities and a product roadmap centered on expanding beyond core remittances, while CFO Vikas Mehta detailed the quarter’s drivers and updated the company’s outlook for the remainder of the year.

Record revenue, profitability, and cash flow in Q1

Mehta said first-quarter revenue was $453 million, up 25% year over year and above the midpoint of Remitly’s prior guidance. Adjusted EBITDA was $102 million, also ahead of expectations, while GAAP net income rose to $49 million compared with $11 million in the year-ago quarter. Free cash flow was over $70 million, which Mehta attributed largely to the company’s profitability, with differences between adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow driven by working capital, capital expenditures, and restructuring payments.

Gunningham said adjusted EBITDA topped $100 million for the first time and described the quarter as another period of “record revenue and adjusted EBITDA” and “record-adjusted EBITDA margin and net income.” He added that the pace of share repurchases increased “nearly” four-fold during the quarter.

Customer growth and volume strength, with U.S. regulatory tailwinds

Mehta said send volume rose 37% year over year to $22.1 billion. Quarterly active customers increased 20% to over 9.6 million, which he said was ahead of expectations and accelerated sequentially. Send volume per active customer climbed to nearly $2,300, up 14% year over year, which Mehta characterized as a record “on both an absolute and percentage growth basis.”

Management attributed the quarter’s outperformance to several factors, including what Mehta called “recent regulatory changes in the U.S.” that drove a shift from offline to online remittances, leading to “record new customer acquisitions.” He also cited elevated demand tied to higher U.S. tax refunds and “favorable market conditions in key corridors.” During the Q&A, Mehta added that holiday timing (Ramadan and Easter shifting earlier) contributed to the quarter’s shape, while geopolitical uncertainty supported a surge in activity in some Middle East-related corridors.

On corridor and geographic performance, Mehta said U.S. revenue grew 25%, while “rest of the world” revenue grew 31%, which he said highlighted diversification. He pointed to the UAE as a notable contributor, saying send volumes there rose over 150% year over year, “due in part to a short-term surge in volumes during a period of heightened regional uncertainty.”

Mehta said Remitly’s take rate was 2.05% and “in line with expectations,” adding that mix—particularly growth in high-value senders and businesses and a higher digital payout mix—affected the metric. He said revenue less transaction expenses (RLTE) dollars grew 28% to $308 million, and RLTE margin improved to 68% of revenue, up 156 basis points year over year.

Growth accelerators: high-value senders, Remitly Business, receivers, and card-led “send now, pay later”

Gunningham and Mehta emphasized faster growth in segments beyond the company’s core send business. This quarter, Remitly updated its definition of “high-value senders” to include customers making transactions of $5,000 or more, a change Gunningham said better aligns resources with a “high-touch certainty-first experience.” Mehta said high-value sender volume grew 73% year over year, with mix up 220 basis points year over year. Gunningham told analysts the segment’s growth has “overachieved all our plans so far,” prompting the company to dedicate full product and engineering teams and ship features “daily.”

Remitly Business also continued to scale. Gunningham said business volumes grew 30% quarter over quarter and were “ahead of expectations.” He described the cross-border payments pain point for small businesses and said the company is adding teams, partnerships, and a distinct go-to-market model. Mehta said Remitly ended Q1 with over 20,000 Remitly Business users and more than 30% quarter-over-quarter business send volume growth, adding that business send volume and RLTE contribution were “more than two times higher” than the core business during the quarter. Remitly launched a business receiver product in five additional countries and introduced a feature allowing businesses to send a payment link to recipients rather than collect extensive recipient details.

On receivers, Gunningham said Remitly is targeting more than 100 million people who “receive money in one currency and spend in another.” He said the company recorded its first receiver transaction after launching “receiver and request” capabilities in six countries, alongside a wallet enabling receivers to hold funds in USD or USDC and withdraw to local bank accounts, mobile wallets, or cash pickup. However, he told analysts the receiver opportunity is still “very early days” and “not contributing much yet.”

Remitly also discussed borrow, spend, and save initiatives. Gunningham said revenue from these offerings has shown “strong traction,” more than doubling year over year. He announced an expansion of the company’s “send now, pay later” concept into a card-based plan: for a low monthly fee, eligible customers will receive a global debit card, a wallet, and access to a short-term line of credit for remittances offered by a bank partner, alongside loyalty and payment-timing rewards. Mehta said unit economics are expected to be strong, with contributions from platform and interchange fees and float income, and reiterated that loans would be issued by a bank partner and offered only to existing customers with demonstrated repayment behavior.

AI and operating discipline: headcount actions, fraud prevention, and productivity gains

Both executives framed AI as a major driver of efficiency and product velocity. Gunningham said the company is embedding AI “across everything we do,” describing benefits in cost, speed, and trust. He said Remitly identified opportunities to streamline operations, citing “more than 250 headcount reductions and over 50 roles redeployed through efficiency gains year-to-date,” and added that over the next several years he expects the company to generate “significantly more revenue with roughly the same number of people.”

Mehta highlighted AI-driven improvements in fraud prevention and support. He said Q1 provision for transaction losses was $21 million, or 9.3 basis points of send volume, “better than our expectations,” benefiting from an AI-driven fraud model deployed late last year. In customer support, he said over 97% of transactions are completed without agent contact, and AI assistants are reducing the need for human intervention, with early customer satisfaction for AI-led interactions “performing as well as human agent interactions.”

On expenses, Mehta said the company delivered leverage across all major non-GAAP categories, noting the corporate workforce reduction of “more than 10%” in Q1 and a hiring pause after in-quarter headcount actions. Marketing spend was $82 million, up 20.7% year over year, while marketing as a percent of revenue improved to 18.2%. He highlighted Remitly’s “Skip the Line” campaign aimed at converting U.S. offline senders, citing an LTV-to-CAC ratio of about 6x and a payback period under 12 months.

Capital allocation and updated outlook

Mehta said Remitly repurchased $44 million of shares in Q1, buying back 2.8 million shares and reducing outstanding shares to 210 million, down quarter over quarter “for the first time” in the company’s history. The company ended the quarter with about $650 million in cash. Mehta said the company’s “top priority” for free cash flow after organic investment and customer pre-funding requirements “remains the repurchase of shares.”

For Q2 2026, Remitly guided revenue to $483 million to $485 million (17% to 18% growth) and adjusted EBITDA to $86 million to $88 million, implying an adjusted EBITDA margin of around 18%. Mehta said Q2 growth reflects tougher comparisons and timing shifts tied to Ramadan and Easter, elevated tax refunds benefiting Q1, and volume increases late in Q1 associated with geopolitical events.

For the full year, Mehta raised or reaffirmed guidance for revenue of $1.96 billion to $1.975 billion (20% to 21% growth) and adjusted EBITDA of $370 million to $385 million, or about a 19% margin. He also said the company expects positive GAAP net income “each quarter this year.”

In Q&A, Gunningham said Remitly is “starting to analyze acquisitions a little bit differently” given growth in newer customer categories, though he noted the company has not historically been acquisitive and said he does not see “anything obvious on the horizon” for the core business. He also addressed integrations with ChatGPT and WhatsApp, saying there is “no financial interchange” with ChatGPT and describing both as early experiments as customers increasingly interact with financial services through new interfaces.

About Remitly Global NASDAQ: RELY

Remitly Global, Inc operates as a digital financial services company specializing in cross-border money transfers. Through its proprietary online platform and mobile applications, the company enables immigrants, expatriates and international workers to send remittances swiftly and securely to their families abroad. By focusing on fast deliverability and transparent pricing, Remitly seeks to streamline a process traditionally dominated by cash-based methods and legacy money transfer operators.

Founded in 2011 by Matt Oppenheimer and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Remitly has grown from a startup into a publicly traded corporation listed on NASDAQ under the ticker RELY.

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