INSTAREM UPBEAT ON MALAYSIA
Country offers large market as it has fair number of expatriates, says chief business officer
INSTAREM Malaysia Sdn Bhd, a digital cross-border payments company, sees Malaysia as a large market for its digital remittance services. Chief business officer Pratik Gandhi said there is a fair number of expatriates in the country who are sending money in and out of Malaysia.
“Malaysia is a natural progression from where we are based, in Singapore. The country is fairly dominated by banks, but we feel it is right for us to be here, especially when technological disruption is concerned,” he said at the launch of its services platform, here, yesterday.
InstaReM has licences to operate in eight markets covering 40 countries with 3.2 billion people in developed and developing countries.
It previously expanded its footprint into the European Union, opening an office in Lithuania in September. It will start operations in India next month, having received approval from the Reserve Bank of India.
InstaReM also aims to began operations in Indonesia and New Zealand by the end of this year after obtaining the necessary approvals. It hopes to open a branch office in Japan by the first half of next year.
According to Pratik, InstaReM has a daily ticket transaction of US$2,000 and RM200,000 cap for business transactions.
It plans to get Bank Negara Malaysia approval to raise this limit as demand increases.
Further, Pratik said InstaReM hopes to collaborate with consumers and financial institutions in Malaysia and drive the adoption rate of technological innovations.
“We provide easy remittance services in many currencies with just a few clicks. Customers are able to track their transactions to the recipients. This can be conveniently done at home or wherever without the need to bring cash to the branches or counters,” he said.
Pratik added that via InstaReM, customers in Malaysia will now be able to enjoy costeffective and fast cross-border money transfers on any currencies to more than 60 countries with just a few clicks, unlike via conventional remittances.