Receiving money from abroad made easy

State Bank of India (SBI) plans to launch pre-paid cards for the beneficiaries of foreign remittances to receive and withdraw money easily.

 Under the remittance model envisaged by India’s largest bank, a Non-Resident Indian having a deposit account with an overseas SBI branch, only needs to give instructions using internet/mobile banking to load his kin’s pre-paid card with the required funds. 

 In turn, the beneficiary in India can withdraw cash from any of SBI’s 43,500 ATMs across the country using the card.

 According to a senior bank official, online remittance will not entail any documentation as the NRI would already be SBI’s customer; the money transfer would be instantaneous; and be relatively easy on the remitter’s pocket in terms of charges vis-à-vis other remittance companies.

 “We want to be at both ends of the remittance transaction. The pre-paid card customer could then be gradually converted into a regular customer,” said the official.

SBI is likely to initially pitch the pre-paid card to its West Asia-based NRI customers. The bank expects these customers to inform their relatives in India about the utility of the product. To introduce the pre-paid remittance product, SBI has initiated talks with a couple of payment processing companies.

 At present, SBI offers its overseas customers multiple channels for money transfer, including instant transfer, online remittance, and speed remittance.

According to a World Bank report, the top recipients of remittances for 2013 are India ($71 billion), China ($60 billion), the Philippines ($26 billion), Mexico ($22 billion), Nigeria ($21 billion), and Egypt ($20 billion). In terms of volume, India, with $71-billion of remittances, tops the global chart.

To put this in perspective, it is just short of three times the FDI it received in 2012, said the report.

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