Axis Bank strengthens GCC remittance offering

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Jacob Ninan, Head of GCC region, Axis Bank and Rajiv Anand at the Press conference.
Jacob Ninan, Head of GCC region, Axis Bank and Rajiv Anand at the Press conference.

Dubai - Centralised Remittance Hub provides efficient support

By Rohma Sadaqat

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Published: Thu 18 Feb 2016, 11:00 PM

Last updated: Fri 19 Feb 2016, 1:00 AM

 Axis Bank on Thursday announced its plans to further strengthen its remittance offering in the GCC region, through expanding its arrangements with correspondent banks.
"The bank continues to expand its partner network across the GCC region, with a specific focus on getting into more arrangements with correspondent banks while continuing to actively manage our large existing exchange house relationships," Rajiv Anand, group executive and head of retail banking at Axis Bank, said. "This has resulted in a robust growth at a CAGR of 26 per cent over the past three years in remittance volumes from the UAE, and we shall continue to look at growing aggressively for 2016-2017 as well."
Elaborating on the distinctive features of Axis Bank's remittance offering, Anand said: "Our strategy of expanding our partner network of exchange houses and correspondent banks in the region is to provide additional channels of money transfer to our existing NRI customers, as well as to leverage these relationships to acquire new NRI customers.
Axis Bank, which caters to NRIs in UAE through its offices here and through tie ups with other banks and financial institutions in the GCC, offers completely automated remittance processing engine, AxisRemit Direct, available to exchange houses and correspondent banks. A complete suite of disbursement options is also available, which includes instant credit to Axis account holders, and instant seamless processing for third party account holders through all electronic payment modes - NEFT, RTGS and IMPS.
"To support these remittance relationships, we have a versatile platform that supports a range of message transmission modes from API-based integration for banks and large exchange houses to file-based transmission and transaction-level input for partners with small to medium scale operations. In-built business validations that automate compliance checks, would ensure regulatory adherence with minimal manual intervention. The platform is in the process of further enhancement with additional payment options being enabled that align directly with the NRI's needs in India allowing our partners to offer these value added services to their customers," Anand said.
He also added that a dedicated operations unit, Centralised Remittance Hub, has also been setup to provide efficient operational support and customer service to institutional remittance partners. In addition, an online FX booking portal, FX Connect, which allows partners to carry out real time FX trades with the bank has also been offered.
Anand also touched upon how Axis Bank is working on digitisation. "Axis Bank has been on the forefront of leveraging technology to bring about a large scale transformation. We have not only focused on providing a seamless customer experience through mobile and Internet, we have also redesigned most of our core processes at the back-end leading to reduction in errors, turnaround- time and cost. We have empowered our sales staff in India to open savings accounts and cards on a real time basis using tablets," he said.
- rohma@khaleejtimes.com 


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