Money & Banking

MoneyGram sees 81% increase in online remittances in April

Surabhi Mumbai | Updated on May 19, 2020 Published on May 19, 2020

Payment services firm focussing on growing digital capability

With the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown impacting mobility of workers across the world, payment services firm MoneyGram saw an 81 per cent increase in its online remittances in April this year compared to a year ago and now plans to focus more on digital initiatives to help its customers.

“As the Covid-19 crisis hit us, our digital business has grown substantially. In April 2020, digital business grew by 81 per cent year on year. People are unable to go to a branch so they prefer to either use bank account credit facility or use MoneyGram online,” said Anil Kapur, Head, Asia-Pacific and South Asia, MoneyGram International.

In an interaction with BusinessLine, Kapur said that the company will continue to explore digital opportunities in this environment and is working on multiple ways to reach out to customers and service them better.

“The situation will progress positively as the lockdown opens up but it’s very difficult to predict what will happen in the future. We are finding ways to reach out to our customers in this environment and how the agent can go to them,” he said.

The recent partnership with Federal Bank is also expected to help the company as it will allow for direct deposit of remittances in bank account.

Digital business

“With the Covid-19 pandemic, our walk-in business experienced a downturn, simultaneously our digital business has grown and our focus has been on growing digital capability. This is part of the reason for the tie-up with Federal Bank,” Kapur said.

In India, MoneyGram also has tie ups with EbixCash, Thomas Cook, Unimoni, Supreme Securities and Muthoot Forex, which has given it presence in over 40,000 locations.

“Ebix has a huge network in India of agents around the country. This gives us access to a lot of areas which a typical bank may not have branches in. We need to have the capability as many of our receivers in rural India may not have access to bank accounts easily,” Kapur said.

Globally, MoneyGram has 48 million users and is present in over 200 countries.

Published on May 19, 2020

A letter from the Editor

Dear Readers,

The coronavirus crisis has changed the world completely in the last few months. All of us have been locked into our homes, economic activity has come to a near standstill. Everyone has been impacted.

Including your favourite business and financial newspaper. Our printing and distribution chains have been severely disrupted across the country, leaving readers without access to newspapers. Newspaper delivery agents have also been unable to service their customers because of multiple restrictions.

In these difficult times, we, at BusinessLine have been working continuously every day so that you are informed about all the developments – whether on the pandemic, on policy responses, or the impact on the world of business and finance. Our team has been working round the clock to keep track of developments so that you – the reader – gets accurate information and actionable insights so that you can protect your jobs, businesses, finances and investments.

We are trying our best to ensure the newspaper reaches your hands every day. We have also ensured that even if your paper is not delivered, you can access BusinessLine in the e-paper format – just as it appears in print. Our website and apps too, are updated every minute, so that you can access the information you want anywhere, anytime.

But all this comes at a heavy cost. As you are aware, the lockdowns have wiped out almost all our entire revenue stream. Sustaining our quality journalism has become extremely challenging. That we have managed so far is thanks to your support. I thank all our subscribers – print and digital – for your support.

I appeal to all or readers to help us navigate these challenging times and help sustain one of the truly independent and credible voices in the world of Indian journalism. Doing so is easy. You can help us enormously simply by subscribing to our digital or e-paper editions. We offer several affordable subscription plans for our website, which includes Portfolio, our investment advisory section that offers rich investment advice from our highly qualified, in-house Research Bureau, the only such team in the Indian newspaper industry.

A little help from you can make a huge difference to the cause of quality journalism!

Support Quality Journalism
  1. Comments will be moderated by The Hindu Business Line editorial team.
  2. Comments that are abusive, personal, incendiary or irrelevant cannot be published.
  3. Please write complete sentences. Do not type comments in all capital letters, or in all lower case letters, or using abbreviated text. (example: u cannot substitute for you, d is not 'the', n is not 'and').
  4. We may remove hyperlinks within comments.
  5. Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name, to avoid rejection.
FSS launches eFinclusiv AEPS 2.0
You have read 1 out of 3 free articles for this week. For full access, please subscribe and get unlimited access to all sections.