Grab, a Singapore-based transportation and payments company, is ready to start offering money transfer services in Southeast Asia, targeting a market long dominated by banks and corporations equivalent to Western Union Co, Bloomberg reports.
Thursday’s announcement said that from early next yr, GrabPay wallets will have the option to immediately transfer money to a different country, allowing users to bypass banks and transfer agents.
Grab will supervise the flow of funds and guarantee comprehensive transfers, he added.
The remittance industry “suffers from opaque and expensive pricing structures coupled with inefficient delivery operations,” Grab said.
The costs of cross-border fund transfers remain high as banks view money transfers as a high-risk activity as a consequence of money laundering concerns, the World Bank said in an April report.
The report shows that East Asia and the Pacific, including Southeast Asia, is the second most costly region for international remittances, second only to sub-Saharan Africa.
According to a World Bank report, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, lots of whose residents worked abroad, were among the many 10 largest recipients of remittances on the earth in 2017, with a complete amount of USD 56 billion.
Last month, Grab partnered with lenders including Bangkok’s Kasikornbank Pcl and Singapore’s United Overseas Bank Ltd. in a bid so as to add financing sources and expand its reach in Southeast Asia, where greater than 600 million people live.
The financial technology company operates in eight Southeast Asian countries: Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia.
Source : Star
