During a recent briefing to South Asia-focused media and community leaders, Mr Vinoth Manoharan, Country Manager of InstaReM, one of Southeast-Asia’s leading digital cross-border payments companies with a growing presence in Australia, revealed that focusing on customer experience and convenience has been integral in the firm’s growth and success in the Australia-to-South Asia/ India corridor.
“The South Asia/India corridor is very exciting for InstaReM, and we strive to deliver the best-quality experience to our Indian and other South Asian customers. This audience often tells us that convenience is important to them when conducting remittances. We have heard their message loud and clear and are pleased that our focus on customer experience and convenience has resulted in a strong 24 percent volume growth in the Australia-to-South Asia corridor, led by Australia-India traffic last year,” said Mr Manoharan.
The Singapore-headquartered InstaReM, which started its operations with Australia-India corridor in 2015, enables consumers, businesses and banks to make international money transfers at a low cost. InstaReM’s growth in Australia echoes a global trend of accelerated remittance growth, especially into the South Asian region where it topped 13.5 percent last year.
“My father regularly remits money back home to South Asia and used to be hesitant about transferring money online. After experiencing great convenience in his first digital transaction with InstaReM, the notion of taking time to visit a physical branch or an agent does not make sense to him anymore,” he said.
“His situation is not unique—many of the South Asian diaspora living, working, and studying in Australia need to conveniently send and receive money and we know how important it is to make the process as smooth as possible,” continued Mr Manoharan.
India is the second largest global remittance market for Australia, with AUD$2.74 billion transferred from Australia to India in 2017. World Bank statistics show migrants in Australia sent close to AUD$23.816 billion overseas in 2017.
During the briefing session, InstaReM laid out the firm’s focus on understanding and delivering on the unique needs of the South Asian/Indian diaspora in Australia through unique positioning of five core benefits, which include zero-margins on foreign exchange rates; low transaction fees; absolute transparency in costs; speed of settlement; and convenience.
A Finder.com.au study found 12 percent of people in Australia provide financial assistance for relatives overseas and 32 percent have sent money abroad at least once; around half of those as a gift and just over one third to support relatives.
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