“The GCC was the largest remitting region last year. This was possible due to the diversification of the economy, which the governments did to reduce their dependency on oil. Initiatives like the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Expo2020 in the UAE, and various major infrastructure projects across the region, are further attracting migrant talent, especially from the South Asian and Arab countries. These can help the remittance flow to be steady,” said the UAE Exchange Group CEO Promoth Manghat.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Manghat said Qatar accounted for more than $10.4bn in remittances in 2015, with South Asian countries receiving 70%, citing a World Bank report.
“Volatility in the global currency markets coupled with socio-political conditions influenced the currency value. A stronger dollar further weakened the other currencies, impacting remittance positively. Also the oil price slump did not affect the remittance flow from the GCC countries much,” he said.
Qatar-UAE Exchange country head Mathai Vaidian also said the company’s online portal witnessed a remittance volume of close to $20mn in the first six months of 2016. It has around 25,000 active digital customers since the portal was launched in December 2015.
“With digital being the future, we are treading aggressively towards digitising our product offerings for our customers in Qatar, and introducing the ‘online remittance channel’ was one of the steps in that direction,” he said.
Asked if the online portal will impact on plans to open more branches, Manghat said the company “will continue to expand,” citing the recent opening of a 10th branch in Qatar at the Asian Town.
“We don’t think that (online portal) can 'sunset' completely the retail branches. We will continue to expand because it is very important to our operations. We believe the customer is first and bringing digital is bringing convenience to them, providing them one more option to avail of our services,” he told Gulf Times.
He also said: “We are investing substantially in digitising our entire product experience. That’s a very important focus area for the UAE Exchange as a group because we have always embraced technology and we have brought the right technology to make the customer experience more convenient."