A new study from Juniper Research has found that international remittances — including airtime top-ups — via mobile phone will exceed $25 billion by 2018, up 67 percent from an estimated $15 billion in 2015, according to a press release about the report.

The research found a significant upsurge in international remittance activity in the past two years with a number of cross-border mobile remittance services being deployed. For example, PayPal-owned Xoom announced in April 2016 that it will expand its services to 13 new recipient countries.

It also found that international mobile money transfers are expected to grow in frequency in all regions as users become more accustomed to using the service. Higher value transactions are also forecast.

The new research, Digital Money Transfer & Remittances: Domestic & International Markets 2016–2021, noted that the international remittance market is increasingly being disrupted by a proliferation of smaller, agile "pure-play" digital providers such as PayPal Xoom and WorldRemit.

"Previously dominated by Western Union and MoneyGram, the international mobile money transfer is becoming increasingly competitive with these new mobile remittance providers offering markedly lower prices than the established players," said Nitin Bhas, author of the research. 

He said that London-based startup TransferWise presents a greater threat to the traditional players, as it offers extremely low (0.5 percent) transaction fees for higher value ($295-plus) transactions.

The research also found that while international cash remittance growth has slowed, transaction volumes have surged in the airtime top-up market, where service providers are not required to obtain money licences. Juniper said that the simplicity of airtime and the need to facilitate basic P2P money flow means that these still represent the initial deployments in many markets. It also enables the sender of the remittance to control precisely what that the funds will be used for.