Matthew Oppenheimer

Matthew Oppenheimer is a software engineer and entrepreneur who co-founded Remitly in 2011. His defining moment came when he realized that the legacy correspondent banking network was fundamentally broken, and he spent months coding the initial API integrations with the Philippine banking system, establishing the corporate philosophy of building a direct-to-rail financial infrastructure that bypasses traditional intermediaries.

Matthew Oppenheimer is an American software engineer, entrepreneur, and the current Chief Executive Officer of Remitly Global, Inc. Born and raised in the United States, Matt developed a deep interest in software engineering and financial technology during his college years, recognizing the profound inefficiencies in the global financial system. In 2011, after witnessing the frustrations of his Filipino friends who were forced to pay exorbitant fees to send money home, Matt partnered with his brother Josh and Tristan Pollock to found Remitly. Matt's genius lay in technical architecture and product design; he pioneered the practice of building direct, API-level connections with the domestic payment rails of emerging markets, eliminating the intermediary fees charged by correspondent banks. This deep technical integration allowed Remitly to offer faster, cheaper transfers than the legacy operators, establishing the template for its rapid expansion across dozens of countries. Under his leadership as CEO, Remitly has grown from a scrappy Seattle startup to a publicly traded financial institution with a $4.5 billion market capitalization, processing over $60 billion in annual transfer volume. Matt's vision of a seamless, transparent, and instant digital remittance experience has fundamentally disrupted the $800 billion global remittance market, empowering millions of migrant workers with a superior financial service.