Taking center stage, at Africa’s leading Mobile Remittance Event on February 2nd, 2016, our COO, Mr. Sudhesh Giriyan discussed the dire need for an open remittance industry, globally. This cause of an open remittance architecture is an important issue that we as a brand have been been championing for the last few years now.
In 2015, approximately $601 billion was transferred by expats to their families residing in their home countries, at an average transfer fee of 7.37% (Q4 2015) . This transfer fee stands high against the ‘5×5’ objective that was initiated in 2009 by the G8 countries, to reduce global remittance costs from 10 percent to 5 percent in 5 years. As of December 2015, over 6 years since the decision, the global average cost of sending remittances has reduced merely by over 2.5 percent.
One of the important reasons for this is ‘exclusivity’ – a hurdle that is rooted within the remittance industry itself. Typically, brands who enjoy the first mover advantage, get into exclusive agreements with an eventual service provider (such as banks, exchange houses, local money transfer companies, retail entities, etc.) restricting it from working with any other brand in the market.
Xpress Money has been contributing to this cause in different ways; the most noteworthy being its low remittance costs – 2% as compared to the industry standards of 7.37%. The brand is hopeful that the industry will come together to abolish exclusivity, not only for the industry’s sake but the customers at large.
The 6th Remittance & MobileMoney Expo in Lagos, Nigeria was attended by remittance brands from the world over. Twitter saw a lot of chatter from the organizers and brands who continually live tweeted during the event.
