between € and US$). Major operators The remittance industry has mostly been dominated by companies headquartered in European financial centers and the American West, with Western Union having the largest market share as of 2019. Other companies such as MoneyGram have also been a key player for decades. Most companies in the industry are pure play money transfer providers, although they may be owned by parent companies with more diverse interests. Each of these companies focus on different consumer bases. Wise has been the fastest-growing money transfer startup in terms of total annual volume transferred, and focuses on transferring funds between bank accounts, often between developed countries. Ria Money Transfer has had an established presence among Spanish speakers in North America and Spain. WorldRemit has a higher share of African migrants located worldwide, while Azimo focuses specifically on the European market with an emphasis on migrant communities. Companies such as WorldRemit, Remitly, and Azimo have smaller average transfer amounts due to the higher share of working-class migrants using their services. Although the remittance market share has diversified since the advent of money transfer "fintech" (financial technology startups) during the 2010s, Western Union continues to dominate the majority of the remittance market share. Since the advent of fintech, many digital remittances have emerged on the scene, leading to the rise of comparison platforms or aggregators such as FXcompared and Monito in Europe and Send4x in Southeast Asia. Blockchain-based remittances companies are also starting to be used and offer such advantages as fast transfer time and relatively low transaction costs. There is also a relevant initiative, launched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2017, called Mojaloop. It is designed (in cooperation with Ripple, Dwolla, ModusBox, Crosslake Technologies and Software Group) to deliver financial support to people living in areas underserved by banks. By region The US has been the leading source of remittances globally every year since 1983. Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Switzerland have been the next largest senders of remittances since 2007. Between 9 million and 11 million workers send remittances from Russia each year. Asia A majority of the remittances have been directed to Asian countries like India (approx. US$87.0 billion in 2021), China (approx. US$ 60.0 billion in 2021), the Philippines (approx. US$33.5 billion in 2020), Pakistan (US$26.0 billion in 2020), Bangladesh (US$21.5 billion in 2020) and more. Asian countries such as Tajikistan and Nepal are among