FIA Global predicts rapid growth in Nepali remittances in 2022

Mumbai: FIA Global, India's leading online banking and financial services provider with more than 50 million customers, has been the platform of choice for Nepali migrants to send money back home.

In the last quarter, FIA has witnessed an increase in remittances to Nepal on its digital-remittance platform, iRemit. As the name suggests, iRemit is an online platform that helps customers remit money and has been the one-stop remittance platform for Nepalese workers in India to remit funds – from 'sachet' amounts to maximum permissible – back home to their families and friends.

FIA's digital-remittance platform does over 13,000 transactions every month, with a majority of Nepali users living and working in Delhi, Chandigarh, Mumbai and Himachal Pradesh. FIA also supports close to 2 lakh recipients in Nepal for whom it is a point of loyalty and trust that they place on the channel.

During the pandemic, migrant labours were left stranded with no access to money or the option to relocate to their natives. The process of remitting money amid restrictions was likely observed to be a long haul. That was the foremost problem they had to be contended with.

But a lot has changed in the post-world of pandemic. On slow emergence from the pandemic, the economy is now on the path of growth again. Businesses in India have started to gather momentum and are recruiting from the migrant pool, including Nepali workers. Understanding the dynamic nature of the jobs and economy, the workers are more aware this time and would prioritise money remission more than ever. Learning from past scenarios, they will remit frequently to ensure that their families need to have access to money in troubled times.

One of the predominant challenges of remitting money is to find the nearest branch of one's respective banking partner amid the hassles of urgency. The second problem is the question of trust. Building trust is something FIA remitters work on. They work on digital receipts that are automated and keep the customer apprised on the process and time-taken for the remittance to happen. Each transaction is completed before moving onto the next customer. Usually, the FIA agent belongs to the community he or she services and that makes it all the easier to build customer loyalty and trust.

FIA's digital platform FINTAP eliminates all these challenges and has gained the trust and loyalty of the Nepali migrant labourers who are able to remit money home even from the remote areas of India on a daily or weekly basis.

FIA has partnered with Prabhu Bank and Global IME Bank in Nepal for a seamless flow of remittances. FIA's platform also offers human intervention to support and address the queries of users in their native language.

Talking to Bizz Buzz, Rahul Yajnik, Sales head, FIA Global – Financial Inclusion said, "Personal remittances have contributed nearly 25 per cent to Nepal's GDP in the last five years, according to the World Bank. FIA's digital-remittance model indicates the necessity of a reliable, easily accessible platform that enables and empowers people across borders to send and receive money with confidence. Our model ensures that the remitter and receiver are not disadvantaged in any way due to challenges related to literacy, awareness or language."

These workers also have a latent need for other financial services, such as health insurance, life insurance, accident insurance, and more. Financial institutions in both countries are leveraging this data to offer additional sachet financial services, such as insurance or small loans, which are customisable, based on the requirements of these workers.