JEDDAH: Despite the global financial crisis, the remittance industry, which has grown dramatically in recent years, still has a huge potential worldwide as nearly 200 million people live outside their country of origin.
In an interview with Arab News, Anthony P. Ryan, president and chief executive officer of MoneyGram International, Inc., a leading global provider of money transfer services, said the global market value of the remittance industry was growing rapidly and had reached $305 billion in 2008.
Ryan, a 25-year industry veteran who was in the Kingdom recently, said Saudi Arabia was a very lucrative remittance market in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) region. “There are seven million immigrants (27 percent) in Saudi Arabia with a population of 26 million and Saudi Arabia is the second largest remittance market in the world with $17 billion remitted in 2008,” Ryan said quoting the World Bank’s data.
He said according to the International Organization for Migration 2005 report, there were 38.4 million immigrants in the US, 12.1 million in Russia, 10.1 million in Germany, 6.8 million in Ukraine, 6.5 million in France, 6.1 million in Canada, 5.7 million in India, 5.4 million in UK and 4.1 million in Australia.
Highlighting the countries, Ryan said India was the world’s top receiver of remittances. He said the major recipients of money in 2008 were India ($45 billion), China $34.5 billion), Mexico ($26.2 billion), The Philippines (18.3 billion) and Poland ($11 billion).
Ryan said MoneyGram, which has formed a strategic alliance with the National Commercial Bank (NCB) combining NCB’s Quickpay centers with MoneyGram’s worldwide outlets, had huge expansion plans in the Kingdom as well as in other GCC countries. “We are targeting countries such as India, the Philippines, Bangladesh as the majority of expatriates in Saudi Arabia are from these countries.” He said “We are trying to expand our network in these countries targeting cities as well as villages which gives more convenience for accessibility.”
Ryan said MoneyGram offered a variety of convenient ways to transfer money such as in person, e-money transfer, direct to account etc. through its agents worldwide. He said “Within less than 10 minutes, money can be accessed anywhere in MoneyGram locations — over 180,000 in 190 countries and territories — as our aim is to help people and businesses by providing affordable, reliable and convenient payment services.”
Despite stiff competition, Ryan said MoneyGram’s market share was growing steadily from over one percent in 2003 to nearly 4 percent in 2008. He said MoneyGram’s core customers were from all over the world — China, India, Africa, South America — with family ties in many countries and that they sent money to help support their loved ones.
Talking about the performance of the company, Ryan said MoneyGram, the US-based multinational company which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), was the second largest player in global remittances with 2008 revenue of $1.3 billion. It moved $250 billion in 2008 and employs 2,300 people. The company registered money transfer revenue growth of 18 percent and volume growth of 15 percent in 2008.