Remittance firm says dollar volume transactions post robust growth

MANILA, Philippines - iRemit Inc., the largest Filipino-owned non-bank remittance company, on Thursday said the remittance dollar volume transaction it handled for the year's first semester grew by more than half. In a statement the company said its remittance volume jumped to 57 percent to $531 million. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has announced that remittances from Filipinos abroad reached $8.2 billion, up a 17.2 percent from the same period a year ago. iRemit recorded a 6.44-percent market share of the total remittance dollar volume – an increase of 0.29 percentage points as compared to its first quarter performance. Harris Jacildo, iRemit president and chief operating officer, said the company has been aggressive in coming out with wide choices of remittance methods, affordable service charges, and competitive foreign exchange rates. iRemit is currently offering iCredit, a bank to bank transaction that allows customers to credit their remittance to any bank of choice; iDeliver, a door-to-door mode with delivery area that spans from 17 regions in the country; iPay, a bills payment facility that accepts Pag-IBIG, SSS, Philihealth, real estate and pre-needs contributions; and iNotify, a remittance pickup service with almost 4000 designated payout stations nationwide. Starting next month, the company will also launch the iRemit Shop N Pay Visa Card, a cash card which is already an EMV (Eurocard Mastercard Visa) compliant. EMV, in global standards, allows interoperation between EMV compliant IC cards and EMV compliant credit card payment terminals throughout the world. Major benefits are improved security (with associated fraud reduction), and the possibility for finer control of "offline" credit card transaction approvals. iRemit Shop N Pay Visa Card is the first EMV compliant issued by Visa International in the Philippines . The new iRemit Shop N Pay Visa Card offers real-time crediting of remittances from abroad. It also enables beneficiaries to withdraw cash from more than 8,000 Bancnet, Megalink and Expressnet ATMs in the Philippines . This can likewise be used for cashless shopping in the Visa-affiliated merchants and accepted in online bills payment and for mobile and internet banking transactions. GMANews.TV