Convenience, often misunderstood as ease, has played a vital role in human evolution. While convenience does imply ease, its impact on the world we live in, and the world we are creating, needs to be looked at from a multi-dimensional perspective. Almost every invention, discovery and innovation is rooted in humankind’s innate desire for making things more convenient. In recent years, with rapid technological advances, convenience has become the heart of businesses across the service sector.
The financial services sector, especially, has seen a paradigm shift in the way business is done. With fintech launching a tide of convenient financial services available to people on their smartphones, financial services look different every day. The consumers have taken the driver’s seat and their voracious appetite for more convenience is opening a world of innovation and opportunities to financial institutions of all types and sizes.
When it comes to innovation for convenience in the financial services sector, the remittances and payments industry has led the way in many ways. For centuries, travelers and migrants have used various ways to send money from one country to another. Back in the day, people came up with innovative ways of their own to send and receive money. Today, money transfer companies, like Xpress Money, have established themselves and are constantly working to make global money transfers more convenient and accessible to millions of migrants around the world. But how does a money transfer company define convenience? Is it just the ease of sending and receiving money? Or is much more? Let’s look at different aspects that define convenience in the remittance industry.
Convenience is…the obvious
The most obvious aspects of convenience, when it comes to transferring money, are the ease of sending and receiving money. Every remittance transaction involves two customers – the sender and the receiver. The remittance service provider needs to consider both when considering convenience. Providing the sender with convenient touch points to initiate a transaction, and an integrated network of partners and services on the receive side for easy payment of remittances. While the classic approach for any remittance company is to ensure that a sender has access to multiple touchpoints or branches to initiate money transfers conveniently, a company like Xpress Money believes in adopting innovative solutions that brings the service to the customers as well.
Convenience is inclusive
For an industry that serves over 250 million migrants, convenience cannot be exclusive to certain countries or groups of people. Many migrants belong to countries with poor financial infrastructure and systems; and reaching these underserved people is bringing true convenience in the industry. Brands have to develop new ways to reach them. For instance, Xpress Money has recently associated with Huawei and Terra Pay to drive mobile money services to more of the worlds unbanked, especially in Africa.
Convenience is peace of mind
Convenience shouldn’t be looked simply from the perspective of ease. Peace of mind plays an important role in any financial transaction. After all, customers are willing to trust you with their hard-earned money. As a remittance company, it’s our prime responsibility to make sure that the money is safe and secure at every stage of the transaction. Offering customers, the best exchange rates and charging affordable transfer fees plays a major role in customer satisfaction. The global average of sending money today is around 7.13% of the amount sent, which is still quite high. Xpress Money, to revolutionize the cost of remittances, has brought down its cost of money transfer to 2% (global average). The industry must constantly find new ways and adopt new technologies to make money transfers more affordable. Other aspects like transaction tracking, free cancellations and refund, and confirmation that the money has been received also plays a key part in making sure that the customer feels content while sending money.
Convenience in the remittance industry, like other industries, plays a vital role at every level of strategy and execution. While there are countless innovations in this space, it is out of the box thinking that helps a remittance company utilize them correctly. In the money transfer space, collaborations play a key role in bringing more convenience to the people. That’s the approach that Xpress Money has taken since the very beginning. Innovative partnerships with like-minded institutions around the world have made the brand one of the most convenient money transfer companies in the world. The coming years are going to be really exciting for the industry with new technologies like blockchain being tested and implemented across financial services, including remittances. The future is going to be faster and more transparent; and at the heart of innovation, will be ‘convenience’.
Written by – Ashwin Gedam, Vice President – Global Marketing, Xpress Money (The article was originally published in Khaleej Times)
