Fino Payments Bank has received approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to commence international remittance business under the Money Transfer Service Scheme (MTSS). 

The bank will be undertaking inward cross-border money transfer activities in association with an overseas principal, the details of which are being worked out.

According to a recent World Bank release in November 2021, India is expected to be the largest recipient of remittances globally in 2021 with expected receipt of $87 billion. This is expected to grow by 3% in 2022 to $89.6 billion as a large number of workers are expected to return to the gulf countries.

The customer segment of Fino Bank at the middle of the pyramid is targeted to families of many of the people working in foreign countries. The money remitted by family members abroad can now be directly withdrawn at the nearest micro-ATM or Aadhaar-Enabled Payment Services (AEPS) enabled Fino Bank’s neighbourhood merchant point.

Said Fino Payments Bank chief operating officer Major Ashish Ahuja, “International remittance further enhances our transactions-based product offerings. We will be ready to offer the inward remittance services to our customers by Q1 FY23. In sync with our digital strategy to enhance customer experience, we will also look at having this product on our mobile application as well.”

Fino merchants provide services such as new account opening, cash deposit, money transfer, cash withdrawal via micro-ATMs or AEPS mechanisms, collect cash on behalf of various institutional clients among others. As a new offering international remittance will help augment income of merchants and the bank leading to strengthening of Fino’s robust distribution network.

“There is a major inward remittance corridor in states like Gujarat, Punjab, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. We already have scaled up our merchant presence in all these geographies. We are therefore confident that the new offering will gain traction very quickly. We also expect to shore up more subscription-based saving accounts due to this initiative as customers would prefer to park the remitted money in a Fino Bank account itself,” added Ahuja.

Going forward Fino Bank will be open to partnering with more leading money transfer operators (MTOs) to widen its horizon across different countries. The bank also has plans to commence outward remittance services soon. 

Fino Bank, which has a network of over 8 lakh merchants across the country as of 30 September 2021, plans to come out with various cross sell offerings like mutual funds, loans and fixed deposits that are expected to contribute to its bottom line.