iRemit acquired license to operate in Europe
Posted on November 25th, 2009
I-Remit Inc. continues to expand its presence all over the world. This time, the Filipino-owned non-bank remittance company has acquired a license to do business in Europe. The company said it received a copy of a letter which came from Banca D’ Italia Eurosistema advising of the registration of iRemit Europe in the general list of financial intermediaries as a provider of money transfer services under Art. 106 of the legislative decree of Italy’s Banking Law.
With the registration, iRemit said it will be able to widen its market reach, “allowing it to service the remittance needs of more Filipinos living and working in Italy.”
Italy is the second most popular destination-country of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Europe. These comprises of about 200,000 of vast majority in the domestic service sector, while a number are also employed in the nursing, skilled, and semi-skilled fields.
iRemit signed a joint earlier, a joint venture agreement with the Elite Exchange Remittance Services S.S. which will allow them to provide remittance services to Filipino workers in Greece. There are about 4,000 Filipinos in Greece, according to the statistics from the Philippine Embassy.
At present, the company has established its operations in 27 countries across Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and the Middle East, with almost 5,000 payout partners in the Philippines.
Recently, it also opened another branch in Canada, located in West Edmonton Mall, the largest shopping mall in North America and the fifth largest in the world. The new outlet, which is iRemit’s fifth in Canada, is aimed not only to service the Filipinos working there, but also the Chinese communities in the area as well.
That is because, the company was able to have a special agreement with the Bank of China Ltd. (BOC), one of China’s four state-owned commercial banks, wherein iRemit was able to offer same-day processing of remittances which beneficiaries in China may withdraw from any Bank of China’s over 12,000 domestic branches.
Meanwhile, iRemit is also securing a license to operate in Macau to further expand its customer base.
