Is Aspora (formerly Vance) Legit? A 2026 Review of the NRI-Focused Remittance App

• Founded 2022 as Vance by Parth Garg (solo founder, Stanford); rebranded to Aspora in April 2025.
• ~$99M raised in total. Most recent: $53M Series B in June 2025 led by Sequoia Capital and Greylock. Reported valuation ~$500M.
• ~$2 billion in annual remittance volume as of mid-2025 (6× YoY growth, up from $400M).
• Regulated: FCA (UK), Bank of Lithuania (EU), FINTRAC (Canada), CBUAE-licensed partner (UAE).
• India-only destination. Aspora exclusively serves NRIs sending to India.
• Mid-market Google rate with capped flat fee (£3/$3/€3/AED 10) — UAE→India is often free.
• 4.5+ Trustpilot rating (newer than incumbents but solid for a 3-year-old fintech).
• Real risks: smaller than Wise/Remitly, less customer-service depth, India-only limits diversification.

The company was founded in 2022 by Parth Garg, an Indian-origin entrepreneur who grew up in Dubai and studied at Stanford. Garg's frustration with how traditional banking systems served the global diaspora — particularly the friction of moving money between his Dubai upbringing and Indian roots — was the original product wedge. Original brand was Vance; the team identified that 32 million NRIs send roughly $129 billion home to India annually (the world's largest remittance corridor) and that incumbent providers (banks, Wise, Remitly) were either expensive or not optimised for NRI workflow.

Vance's product approach: a flat fee structure (rather than percentage), mid-market FX rate, KYC pre-tuned for Indian PAN/Aadhaar/recipient name match, UPI delivery as default. The company is headquartered in London and built early traction across UK and UAE NRI communities.

In June 2025, Aspora closed a $53 million Series B led by Sequoia Capital and Greylock, bringing total funding to roughly $99 million at a reported ~$500 million valuation. In April 2025 the company rebranded from Vance to Aspora to reflect a broader "global diaspora banking" positioning beyond India alone. Annual remittance volume reached $2 billion in H1 2025, a 6× increase from $400 million six months earlier — the proof point that this is a real product with real product-market fit, not a pre-revenue startup.

• UK: Aspora Limited is FCA-authorised as an Authorised Payment Institution (AED Aspora UK Ltd). FCA register confirms the licence.
• EU: EU passporting via Bank of Lithuania licence — same model used by Revolut, Wise and others.
• Canada: Registered with FINTRAC as a Money Services Business.
• UAE: Operates via a CBUAE-licensed partner. Aspora itself is not directly licensed by the CBUAE; the partner model is common for newer entrants in the UAE remittance market.
• Customer funds safeguarded in segregated accounts at major banks per FCA / Bank of Lithuania rules.

Aspora is purpose-built for NRI senders, which makes the experience very different from Wise or Remitly:

• Mid-market "Google rate": Aspora quotes the actual interbank rate (the same rate Google shows). No FX margin baked in.
• Capped flat fee: £3 in the UK, $3 in Canada, €3 in EU, AED 10 in UAE — and UAE→India is typically zero fee. For an NRI sending $1,500 monthly, this is dramatically cheaper than percentage-fee providers.
• UPI delivery as default: Funds land in the Indian recipient's bank account via UPI in seconds.
• Recipient name verification: Aspora pre-checks recipient bank details before you confirm — fewer rejected transfers than competitors.
• Single-purpose KYC: Indian PAN-aware. Aspora knows the recipient is in India and tunes everything for that.

For the specific case of UK→India or UAE→India remittance, Aspora typically beats Wise by a meaningful margin on small-to-medium transfers because the flat fee scales much better than Wise's percentage fee:

• £500 transfer to India: Wise costs ~£3.50 (0.7%); Aspora costs £3. Within margin of error.
• £1,500 transfer to India: Wise costs ~£10.50 (0.7%); Aspora costs £3. Aspora wins by ~£7.
• £5,000 transfer to India: Wise costs ~£25 (0.5% at scale); Aspora costs £3. Aspora wins by ~£22.
• UAE→India any amount: Aspora typically £0 / AED 0 fee. Wise charges its standard percentage.
• Multi-currency holding need: Wise wins (Aspora doesn't offer multi-currency).
• Sending to a country other than India: Wise wins (Aspora is India-only).

• Smaller company than incumbents. Aspora has 100+ employees; Wise has 5,000+. If Aspora ran into financial difficulty, the customer-fund segregation model would still protect deposits — but resolution might take longer than at a larger company.
• India-only. If you ever need to send to anywhere other than India, you need a different provider. Most NRIs accept this.
• Customer service is still scaling. Wise has 14 years of CS playbook refinement; Aspora has 3 years. Edge-case disputes may take longer.
• Newer means less Trustpilot history. Trustpilot 4.5+ is good but reflects a smaller sample size than incumbents.
• UAE partner-licence model is structurally less direct than a primary CBUAE licence — though materially this doesn't change fund protection, it's worth knowing.

For NRIs sending money to India from the UK, UAE, EU or Canada, Aspora is legitimately the best-positioned product on the market — meaningfully cheaper than Wise on flat-fee economics, with NRI-tuned UX and proper FCA/Lithuanian regulation. The company has roughly $99M in total funding (most recently a $53M Series B led by Sequoia + Greylock in June 2025) and $2B in annual remittance volume.

Use Aspora if you're an NRI sending to India routinely. Use Wise alongside Aspora if you also need multi-currency holdings or send to other countries. Avoid relying on Aspora for non-India destinations (it doesn't support them).

Compare Aspora head-to-head with other providers: USD → INR, GBP → INR, AED → INR. Related guides: Is Wise safe?, Best apps to send money to India 2026, Complete NRI guide to managing money.