As members of our great industry, you are all aware of the daily challenges we face with regards to communication, regulation and technology. There is rapid fire evolution taking place in our industry and a big revolution seems right round the corner too.

RemitONE recently attended an important industry conference and we had the pleasure of meeting some of you there. The following are some of the common issues that came up and we thought we should share them with everyone here. All these issues can be addressed and as a technology company representing our industry, we have briefly explained below how we can help.

Expanding the ecosystem – The remittance space is becoming not just about remittances but is now encompassing foreign exchange, airtime, mobile money transfer and utility bill payments. RemitONE is at the forefront of the action and is working relentlessly to deliver these solutions to help expand our ecosystem, bring down operational costs for the service providers and, above all, make it easy for individuals to send money in a transparent manner to their families at affordable prices.

Advocating formal channels in unison – The more challenges the regulators and banks throw at the industry, the more likely it is for people to start using illegal channels to send money back home. Irrespective of the channel used, the hard fact is that money will reach the intended recipient no matter what.

It has become plainly obvious that by standardising technology and procedures, the industry will grow even more rapidly but in a more compliant and responsible manner, stimulating healthy competition and eliminating informal channels.
RemitONE is working actively with stakeholders to promote formal channels. We help start-up money service businesses get licensed and we provide them with a platform that enforces KYC procedure adoption and ensures that AML checks are performed on the send and receive sides of the transaction no matter what.

Standardisation within the industry – The lack of standardisation across jurisdictions is hurting inter Money Service Business (MSB) collaboration. Different jurisdictions have different ways of perceiving and managing remittances. Complex relationships between regulators, central banks and commercial banks give rise to the typical chicken and egg situation where MSBs – banks, exchange houses and money transfer operators – seem to lose if it’s ‘heads’ and not win if it’s ‘tails’. They feel disillusioned by their regulators and some regions have more than one regulator which exacerbates the situation even more.

Additionally, there is no standardised mechanism or protocol – both from a linguistic and operational perspective – which MSBs across the world can use to communicate with each other. You hear many terms such as ‘API’ and ‘FTP’ flying around when talking about ‘integration’ between an ‘MTO’ and a ‘destination bank’. It is only recently that technological innovation has begun driving changes in the remittance industry for the better. A person sending money is a ‘sender’ in one region and a ‘remitter’ in another. An agent paying out money is a ‘pay-out agent’ in one region and a ‘correspondent bank’ in another. A money service business is an ‘MTO’ in one region and an ‘Exchange House’ in another. You get our drift…

RemitONE provides a robust and compliant money transfer platform. We are connecting our clients in Europe with our clients in Africa; our clients in Australia to our clients in South East Asia and so on and so forth. The biggest advantage to MSBs in this scenario is that they are using a common platform, eliminating the ‘integration’ and ‘compatibility’ issues and streamlining the remittance flow processes.

You have to think of technology as an instrument that is bridging the gap between the various industry stakeholders around the world. A common platform transcending borders will smoothen up compliance and regulatory issues and ensure a common protocol is observed at all times between the different parties, bypassing any linguistic or technical barriers. By using a reliable platform, MSBs do not have to worry about technology; they can focus on servicing their customers instead.

Enhanced communication between industry members – There are no industry specific trade magazines in the remittance space today and there are very few lobby groups to represent the members of the industry to the central banks and regulators around the world. There is much more work to be done on ensuring effective communication amongst all the stakeholders, including individual migrants, money service businesses, regulators and banks.

RemitONE has recently launched its monthly E-Newsletter which it sends out to the industry. You can easily subscribe to it by visiting our website. We also send out monthly updates to our clients on what features and products we have introduced to the industry. Our aim is help our industry grow and flourish whilst ensuring all stakeholders remain compliant and competitive.