Cash pickup

Cash pickup is a remittance payout method where the recipient collects physical cash from a payout location — an agent counter, a partner retail store, or a bank branch acting as a cashier — instead of having the funds deposited into a bank account. The sender chooses a payout network when sending, and the transfer generates a reference number; the recipient presents that reference number with a valid photo ID to collect the cash. No bank account is required on either end, which is why cash pickup was the default remittance option across Latin America for decades — in Mexico, the region’s largest remittance market, account deposits only overtook cash payouts in dollar-value share for the first time in 2025, according to Banco de México. It usually settles faster than a bank deposit — often within minutes — but tends to cost more: World Bank pricing data puts cash payouts at around 7% of the amount sent on average, versus roughly 4–5% for digital, account-based transfers, once the fee and the exchange-rate spread are both counted.

See also: Cash pickup vs. bank deposit: which is better? for a full cost, speed, and safety comparison.