Guides, free to everyone.

Two numbers decide what a transfer costs. Most people look at only one.

• Look at two numbers, not one: the fee and the exchange rate. A transfer advertised with no fee can still cost more through its rate.
• Ask every provider the same question: “If I send this amount today, exactly how much arrives, in local currency?” Compare the answers.
• Compare for your own corridor. The same provider can be good value on one route and poor value on another.
• Choose how the money arrives: a bank account, a mobile wallet or cash. Cash collection usually costs more and asks the receiver for identification.
• Use only licensed providers. The financial regulator of the country you send from publishes a register you can search.
• Keep the receipt and the reference number until your family confirms the money has arrived.
• Never send money for someone you have not met, and never pass on money received from a stranger.

Check the official source: World Bank — Remittance Prices Worldwide

General information, not legal, immigration, tax or financial advice.

The wallet on the phone is the family bank. Seven habits keep it safe.

• Your PIN is yours alone. No agent, operator or official ever needs it — not to “verify”, not to “upgrade”, not to “unblock”.
• Never read out a one-time code sent to your phone. The code is the key; whoever asks for it is taking the wallet.
• Money “sent by mistake”? Do not send it back yourself. Ask the operator to reverse it through its official channel.
• Read the name on the screen before you confirm. If it is not the name you expect, stop.
• Keep the SIM card registered in your own name and protect it with a SIM PIN. If your phone loses its network without reason, contact your operator at once.
• Use the operator’s own application, short code and authorised agents. Keep the confirmation messages.
• Agree these rules with the relative who receives your transfers. Fraudsters call the receiver as often as the sender.

Check the official source: BCEAO · BEAC · Central Bank of Nigeria · Central Bank of Kenya · Bank of Ghana · South African Reserve Bank

General information, not legal, immigration, tax or financial advice.

A house can rise well without you on site, if the money follows the evidence.

• Before the first payment, confirm the land itself. Read the guide on land and titles below.
• Put the work in writing: drawings, materials, stages and the price of each stage, signed by the builder.
• Pay by stage, against evidence: dated photographs or video that show the site and a landmark you recognise.
• Have each stage checked by a qualified professional whom you chose, not one proposed by the builder.
• Ask the local authority whether a building permit is required, and see it before work begins.
• Separate the roles. The person who supervises should not be the person who buys the materials and holds the money.
• Pay suppliers directly where you can, and keep every receipt in one shared folder.
• Visit at the stages that matter, or send someone who has no interest in the project.

Check the official source in the country concerned, for example: Ghana — the national lands authority · Kenya — Ministry of Lands · Côte d’Ivoire — public-service portal

General information, not legal, immigration, tax or financial advice.

The most painful losses in our communities begin with a plot bought on trust.

• Never buy from photographs, or on a relative’s word alone, however dear the relative.
• Search the land registry: who is the registered owner, and is there a charge, a dispute or a caution on the land? Search yourself, or through a lawyer you chose.
• Confirm that the seller is the owner and has the right to sell. Family land often needs the consent of several people.
• Walk the boundaries with a licensed surveyor and compare the plan with the ground.
• Use your own lawyer, never the seller’s.
• Pay by traceable means to the owner named on the title. Never hand cash to an intermediary.
• Register the transfer in your own name without delay, and keep the originals in a safe place.
• If a relative acts for you, give a power of attorney that is specific and limited to this purchase.

Check the official source in the country concerned, for example: Ghana — the national lands authority · Kenya — Ministry of Lands · Côte d’Ivoire — public-service portal

General information, not legal, immigration, tax or financial advice.

Most journeys that fail at the airport fail over a paper, not a ticket.

• Check the validity your passport must still have on the day you travel, for the country you are going to and for every country you pass through.
• Check whether you need a visa, including a transit visa, on the official website of each country.
• Carry your residence permit. If it is being renewed, ask the authority that issued it what you need in order to return, before you leave.
• Some countries require proof of vaccination, such as yellow fever. Check the requirement for your route.
• A child travelling with one parent or with another adult is often asked for a letter of consent. Check what your destination requires.
• The name on the ticket must match the passport exactly.
• Carry paper and digital copies of every document, kept apart from the originals.
• Carry medicines in their packaging, with the prescription.

Check the official source, and the embassy of each country on your route: World Health Organization

General information, not legal, immigration, tax or financial advice.

A border should not undo a profession. Recognition follows a path, and it can be walked.

• Find out whether your profession is regulated in the country where you live. Health, law, teaching and engineering usually are.
• For a regulated profession, the professional body decides. For others the employer decides, often helped by an official statement that compares your degree.
• Gather your certificates, transcripts, course outlines and proof of professional registration and good standing.
• Have documents translated by a certified translator where the authority asks for it.
• Some authorities ask your university to confirm your degree directly. Write to your university early.
• Ask about bridging courses, examinations and supervised practice. Many professionals qualify again by this route.
• Be wary of anyone who sells “guaranteed recognition”. Only the competent authority decides.

Check the official source: ENIC-NARIC networks · UNESCO

General information, not legal, immigration, tax or financial advice.

An account is the first key to a salary, a tenancy and a credit history.

• Ask the bank which documents it accepts as proof of identity and proof of address. Some accept a letter from an employer or a university.
• Ask for a basic account. In the European Union, people who live there legally have the right to one.
• Compare the monthly charge, the card, and the cost of sending money abroad from the account.
• Check that the bank is authorised by the country’s financial regulator.
• Never let anyone else use your account, and never receive and forward money for others. That is how honest people are used as “money mules”, and it is a crime.
• Build a history: income paid into the account, bills paid on time, the same address kept up to date.

Check the official source: Your Europe (European Union) · Financial Conduct Authority, UK · Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, USA · Government of Canada

General information, not legal, immigration, tax or financial advice.

A tenancy is a contract. Read it as one, in a language you understand.

• See the property inside before you pay anything, and meet the landlord or a licensed agent.
• Ask for a written agreement: the names, the rent, the deposit, the length and the notice each side must give.
• Ask how your deposit is protected, and obtain a receipt for it.
• On the day you move in, record the condition of every room with dated photographs, and share them with the landlord.
• Pay by traceable means. Never pay rent or a deposit through a money-transfer service to a person you have not met.
• Know whom to call for repairs, and keep your messages.
• In many countries it is unlawful to refuse a tenant because of origin. Free tenant-advice services exist; see “Free help near you” below.

Check the official source: GOV.UK · Service-Public.fr, France · USA.gov · Government of Canada

General information, not legal, immigration, tax or financial advice.

Looking after people you love from another country is a matter of organisation as much as money.

• Pay the school or the clinic directly whenever you can. Ask for the official fee note and a receipt in the child’s or the patient’s name.
• Make one person at home accountable, and agree a simple monthly summary of what was received and spent.
• Keep a written list of your parents’ medicines, their doctor and their clinic, and share it with the relative who lives nearest.
• Several African countries run national health insurance schemes, such as Ghana’s NHIS. Ask whether your parents can be enrolled and who may pay the contribution.
• Decide in advance who takes a parent to hospital in an emergency, and how money reaches that person within the hour.
• Keep copies of your parents’ identity papers and health cards where you can reach them.
• Buy medicines only from licensed pharmacies, in sealed packaging.

Check the official source in the country concerned, for example: National Health Insurance Scheme, Ghana · Côte d’Ivoire — public-service portal

General information, not legal, immigration, tax or financial advice.

Trust is an association’s only capital. A clear book protects it.

• Agree the rules before the emergency: who is entitled, how much comes from the common fund, and who decides.
• Require two officers for every withdrawal.
• Keep the money apart from any officer’s personal account wherever your country’s rules allow an association to hold one.
• Record every contribution and tell the group the running total.
• Obtain a receipt for every payment: the funeral director, the airline, the venue.
• Hand the balance to the family before witnesses, and publish a closing account to all who gave.
• Keep the list of who gave, and how much, within the group, and share a family’s circumstances only with its consent.
• Ask the authority that registers associations in your country whether collections must be declared.

Check the official source: Service-Public.fr — Associations, France · GOV.UK — charities in England and Wales

General information, not legal, immigration, tax or financial advice.