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You might expect remittances to peak around the weekend. Our data shows something different.
We looked at twelve months of successful remittance payouts processed through the PawaPay network to understand when people actually send money home.
The busiest period wasn't Friday evening or the weekend. It was Thursday afternoon, with the single busiest hour at 13:00 UK time.
That matters because the timing of demand has real operational consequences. Funding a mobile money wallet, scheduling maintenance or preparing support teams all become easier when you know when transaction volumes are likely to rise.
This is the first PawaPay Insight, a series using anonymised data from our network to look at the patterns behind how payments move across Africa.
Thursday is the busiest day overall, but what's more interesting is how the week builds towards it. Payouts pick up through Monday and Tuesday, then get much busier from Wednesday onwards.
More than half of the week's payout volume happens between Wednesday and Friday. Thursday is the busiest day at 18.3%, with Friday close behind at 17.6%.
Then things quieten down. Saturday falls to 12.6% and Sunday to 8.9%, less than half the volume we see on Thursday. The quietest point of the whole week is 05:00 on Sunday.
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One hour during the Thursday peak carries more than seven times the payout volume of the quietest hour of the week, and more than four times the volume of a typical overnight hour.
For an operator planning maintenance, that difference matters. One hour at the Thursday peak carries the same payout volume as roughly:
In other words, choosing the right maintenance window can dramatically reduce the number of payments affected, without changing the length of the maintenance itself.
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Customers don't think about payment infrastructure. They expect their money to arrive.
For payment providers, meeting that expectation means being ready before demand arrives. Wallet funding, maintenance windows and operational support all need to reflect when customers actually use the network, not simply when teams are in the office.
Most operators already understand how much money moves through their systems. Looking at demand hour by hour adds another layer: it shows when wallets need to be ready, when maintenance will affect the fewest customers and when operational teams are likely to be busiest.
Knowing how much money moves through a network explains its scale. Knowing when it moves helps you operate it.
We already know a lot about the scale of remittances. The GSMA estimates that mobile money processed more than $2 trillion globally in 2025, while the World Bank tracks remittance flows and costs across markets and corridors.
What those numbers can't show is what happens within the week.
That's where network data becomes useful. It shows the peaks and quiet periods that sit behind the annual totals, and gives payment providers a much more practical view of the demand they're actually managing.
For PawaPay, that's the point of this series. We'll use anonymised data from our network to share more of what we're seeing about how payments move across Africa.
PawaPay gives payment providers one API and one contract to access mobile money across multiple African markets, while we manage the operational complexity behind the scenes.
Click here to talk to us about your remittance requirements.
This analysis is based on twelve months of successful remittance payouts processed through leading international money transfer operators using the PawaPay network, covering the period to July 2026.
All figures have been indexed, with the average hour set to 100, and anonymised to protect customer and merchant confidentiality. Times are shown in UK time, where most senders in this dataset are based.
