RIYADH, 8 January — A new service to assist non-resident Indians to transfer money was launched yesterday. The service, likely to be one of the fastest legal remittance ventures, will be undertaken by the Indian Department of Posts in collaboration with the US-based Western Union Financial Services, represented in the Kingdom by the Saudi American Bank (SAMBA).
It will enable Indian expatriates to transfer their money to beneficiaries in India within 10 minutes.
Addressing a press conference here yesterday, Alok Pande, assistant director general of India’s Department of Posts, said: "The International Money Transfer Service" (IMTS) will be the most reliable service and will fulfill the needs of the dependents of expatriates in India."
Pande said that the beneficiary in India would receive the money in Indian rupees and there is no restriction on the amount sent. The beneficiaries can use their voter card, passport, driving license or income tax card to establish their identities. The post offices, he said, will provide its own identity cards to regular customers.
Explaining how the IMTS service will be operated in Saudi Arabia, Pande said: "A remitter can go to any of the 26 designated SAMBA branches/centers and five Injaz Co.’s offices and pay the principal amount together with SR35 remittance charge. After payment, he/she will get a Money Transfer Control Number on a receipt once the transaction is sent through the system. Then, the beneficiary can go to the post office and receive the money. The whole process is completed within 10 minutes."
At present, IMTS transactions are being processed by over 750 post offices in India including all the state/union territory capitals and the service will be expanded to head post offices at district level by the end of March this year, the postal official said.
India’s partner in this new service venture, Western Union is a worldwide leader in consumer money transfer services with 100,000 locations in more than 186 countries.
On the changes introduced by the Indian postal system, he said: "We have already launched an E-Posts Service under which e-mail messages are sent, received, printed and distributed by our postal employees."
In the financial sector, he said the Indian postal department has started distribution of mutual funds. "We are also in the process of launching a pre-paid cash card in collaboration with MasterCard in the denominations of 1,000, 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000 rupees", he said. This is in addition to many new services like a ‘Speed Money Order Service’ inside India, a ‘Track & Trace Service’ and a ‘Greeting Post Service’ introduced recently.