Sending money home should feel like asking someone you trust

By Sajjad Ifthkar – Founder, Breeze (working title).

Millions of people in the UK send money to family abroad. It pays for medicine, school fees, or the electricity bill back home. The UK sends around $6 billion a year to Pakistan and around $13 billion to India. For the people sending it, this isn’t a financial product. It’s an act of care, and often a duty.

The industry has made real progress. Money now often arrives in minutes, and costs have come down. But when I watch relatives send money, especially older relatives or those more at home in Urdu or Punjabi than English, I still see the same moments of doubt. Which box do I fill in? Have I typed the account number right? Is this rate fair? What will they actually receive?

What I’m building

Breeze is an app that lets people send money home by simply saying what they want, in their own language. You can speak or type – in English, Urdu, Hindi or a mix – something like “send £100 to my cousin in Lahore.” Breeze works out who, how much and where it should go. It then shows one clear summary: what you’re sending, the fee, the rate, what your family will receive and when. Nothing happens until you confirm.

The money goes wherever the family already holds it: a bank account, or a mobile wallet such as JazzCash or Easypaisa in Pakistan, or UPI in India. You can add someone using just their mobile number, and Breeze shows the account holder’s name back to you before anything is sent, so you know it’s the right person.

Often the money is for a specific bill. So in Breeze you can take a photo of a bill from back home – an electricity bill in Lahore, say, or a school fee invoice. Breeze reads it, shows you what’s owed in pounds, and lets you pay it straight to the biller.

The other half of the journey matters just as much. The family on the other side is told when money is on its way and when it has landed – by WhatsApp, which most families already use, or by a simple text message for those who don’t. They don’t need to install anything, and they can reply with a thank-you that appears back in the sender’s app.

The idea behind it is simple. Sending money home should feel like asking someone you trust to do it for you, not like filling in a form.

Why me

I’ve spent more than 20 years at NatWest and RBS in business transformation, programme delivery and customer journeys. That taught me two things. First, a well-designed journey makes a real difference to customers. Second, financial services rightly demand a lot of care around trust, safety and regulation.

This year, AI tools let me test my idea in a way I couldn’t before. Working part-time over about a month, I built a working prototype of Breeze for iPhone and Android, using Claude Code, an AI coding assistant. I’m not a software engineer by background, so that has been a learning experience in itself. Breeze shows the whole journey, but it doesn’t move real money yet.

What I’ve learned so far

The most useful moment so far wasn’t a demo going well. It was a mentor telling me, kindly but clearly, that a good demo isn’t proof that people need the product.

So I’m slowing down on building and speeding up on listening. I’m preparing conversations with people who send and receive money today, to understand what they find hardest, what they’ve tried, and what would make them switch. I’m also looking at working with an established, regulated money transfer provider. That would let a first real transfer happen safely and legally, rather than trying to become a licensed firm on day one.

Why FinTech Scotland

I joined FinTech Scotland to find out, honestly, whether Breeze has legs. I’d welcome the chance to:

·       Show the prototype and hear candid feedback

·       Talk to anyone with experience of remittances, payments regulation or partnering with a licensed provider

·       Meet people in the UK’s Pakistani, Indian or wider diaspora communities who send money home and would share how they do it today

My goal is to turn Breeze into a real, safe and genuinely useful service for families who send money home – but only once I’m confident it solves a real problem well. If any of this resonates, I’d love to hear from you.

Get in touch with Sajjad at s.ifthkar@gmail.com or connect on LinkedIn.

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