I read that global remittance startup LemFi received new funding to accelerate its global growth. Notes the TechCrunch article:
Since its launch in 2020, LemFi has undergone rapid growth by helping diaspora communities in North America and, more recently, Europe, send money to emerging markets across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The 4-year-old fintech boasts over 1 million active users who rely on its multi-currency accounts to transfer money to friends and family in countries like Nigeria, Kenya, India, China, Pakistan, and 15 others.
So I visited LemFi and saw a rookie mistake that I will highlight in the interest of helping others avoid repeating it.
As seen here, LemFi uses a flag next to the language code for English. As readers of this blog well know I recommend against using flags in navigation menus for many reasons.

I was curious to understand how the flag was being used. As I’ve also written before, some websites use flags to denote language, a big mistake.
If one were to visit this website while in France they’d see it change as follows:

So they are not using flags to indicate language which is good new. But using flags to indicate country can still be problematic. If one day LemFi expands into Taiwan I bet they would hesitate before displaying that flag; in other words, there are many geopolitical issues surrounding flags. If you can avoid using flags entirely, you avoid these risks.
There is a separate issue to note. When you click on the gateway link you’ll see the following multi-part global gateway menu. I recommend avoiding these menus (airlines still use them heavily) because you’re asking for multiple clicks from visitors.

A simpler alternative is a one-page ‘universal’ menu like the one used by Airbnb, shown here:

Global expansion is all about scale. And flags simply do not scale well.
PF: If you scroll back up to that multi-part gateway, you may have asked yourself: Why is language the first choice? This may be a subject for a later post…