Image credits: fintech magazine
India would now be able to send money abroad to 44 countries around the world as said by Financial technology firm ‘Wise’ today. Among those 44 nations, the United States, United Kingdoms, United Arab Emirates, Singapore as well as countries like the Eurozone are included too.
According to data from the Reserve Bank of India the total outward remittances of India in the fiscal year 2019-2020 was around $18.75 billion with more than 60% categorized under travel and paying for studying abroad.
The central bank allows residents to flexibly spend up to $250,000 abroad in order to fund personal expenses or education per financial year under a liberalized remittance scheme which begins in April and ends in March the following. Comparatively, the market for inward remittance is larger as many Indians working abroad send money back to their families in India. In the year 2019, personal remittances received in India exceeded $83 billion as per the World Bank data.
“India specifically, it is very exciting”, said Kristo Kaarmann, CEO and Co-founder of Wise. “Over the last, like almost a decade now, the build up of local payments infrastructure and UPI has been very interesting to observe”.
As claimed by Wise, it’s service is faster and cheaper compared with other fintech players as well as traditional banks, which tend to take a large cut and offer unfavorable exchange rates. Wise has its headquarters in London and specializes in cross-currency money transfers, which can be done fully online while banks are the dominant platform for international money transfer in India.