Thursday, Mar 23, 2017

DUBAI: Ahead of the football World Cup in 2022, Qatar has emerged as the brightest spot for remittances in the Gulf for Xpress Money, which is among the world’s top five largest providers of the service, says a senior executive, based on the volume of business the company conducts.

The population in Qatar, which has the largest expat population in the Gulf, reached 2.43 million last year, compared to 1.3 million a few years ago, creating robust demand for services like remittances.

“The numbers (in terms of population) are mind boggling ... All of a sudden we have seen these numbers going to a different level altogether. That being the case we’ve been able to do very good business in Qatar,” Sudesh Giriyan, chief operating officer at Xpress Money, told Gulf News in an interview.

In terms of growth, Qatar has been ahead of other countries in the Gulf, registering 18 per cent growth last year.

“In Qatar, there has been a lot of investments in infrastructure. Even after the World Cup, things will be in good shape in Qatar,” Giriyan said, when asked if this growth would peter down after the World Cup in 2022.

The rest of the Gulf markets, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, saw a double-digit growth last year in remittances. The Middle East remits about $110 billion out of the global $600 billion yearly, contributing to about 18 per cent of the pie, according to World Bank’s 2016 estimates.

Partnerships

The focus is on the remaining 82 per cent of the remittance industry, and Xpress Money has improved its overseas presence through partnerships drastically over a period of time to cash in on that opportunity. And 2017 may be sort of records in terms of the number of partnerships compared to two dozens partners last year, according to Giriyan.

Xpress Money has opened up service locations in many countries in Europe, Latin America, and multiple markets in Africa, and the company is also looking at revenue originating countries like Mexico, Brazil and others.

“I’m very upbeat about the western markets like Europe and North America, and the growth of digital,” Giriyan said. “We have opened many corridors across south and South East Asia, and Africa.”

The remittance provider is also looking at a partner in the Philippines to start sending transactions out of the country to corridors to the UAE and India. Business from Singapore is expected to trickle in soon through a partnership.

For Giriyan, collaboration with other online players, network providers and banks is the “name of the game.”

“There are a few partners today where we share our network. If we look at them at as competitors, it’s end of the game. We still feel that there is room to collaborate,” Giriyan said.

Currently, Xpress Money has 55,000 locations in India, 14,000 in Philippines, 9,000 in Pakistan for cash payouts, account credits and mobile wallet credits.

By Siddesh Suresh Mayenkar Senior Reporter

Gulf News 2017. All rights reserved.