Western Union, a leader in global payment services, is looking at increasing its presence in Kerala considering the growth in the remittance market especially from the gulf countries to the State.
Mr Kiran Shetty, Regional Vice-President, Western Union said, Kerala is an important remittance receiving market in India and Western Union's presence is entering its 17th year. The company is present in 7,500 location which would be increased shortly. Kerala, he said, is the top five market for the company and the large chunk of the business is from the Middle East.
Closer to customer
The objective behind opening more outlets in the State is to come closer to the customers, he said, adding that the average spending of customer transaction is in the range of $400-500 a transaction in the State.
“We have increased our agent location count by 60 per cent year to date in comparison to last year and are represented across all major networks — banks, non-banks and post offices,” he said.
Mr Shetty, who was here in connection with giving away of prizes in connection with the Onam festival competition of Western Union, also expressed the hope that the money remittance market is expected to grow further in spite of all economic downturns.
As a company, we are continually looking at ways to improve our service to consumers. Western Unions network expansion strategy is being where our consumers want us to be and delivering international money transfer service with reliability, convenience and speed, he added.
According to Mr Shetty, India is the world's largest remittance receiving market in the world receiving $55 billion in 2010, followed by China with $51 billion and Mexico with $22 billion. The Indian migrant population has reached close to 30 million spread throughout the world, he added.