Thomas Cook India has announced a strategic partnership with ItzCash to extend its outreach to India’s unbanked inward remittance market, by offering remittance services (Xpress Money and MoneyGram) across a network of over more than 75,000 touch points in India.
According to the World Bank Report Migration and Development Brief, India is the largest receiver of remittances in the world – at around US$ 71 billion in 2014, ranking Indians as the second largest diaspora globally. However, as per the Reserve Bank of India, about 40 per cent of India’s population still does not have access to financial services. Thomas Cook India’s research-analytics further reiterated this opportunity, revealing strong potential in the unbanked inward remittances markets of Middle India and rural areas, including Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Kerala. Hence to leverage the untapped opportunity of this unbanked market, Thomas Cook India has partnered with ItzCash, to offer extensive distribution and hence both ease in access, convenience and swift transactions for its inward remittance customers.
Commenting on the announcement, Mahesh Iyer, chief operating officer, foreign exchange and head – Visas, Thomas Cook India, said, “Inward remittances form about 22 to 23 per cent of India’s foreign exchange income and having more than tripled over the last decade, is a powerful growth market. Thomas Cook India’s alliance with ItzCash, is hence a strategic move to leverage the powerful potential of this unbanked inward remittance market – especially in Middle India and rural and semi-rural catchment areas; and thereby offer our customers hassle free convenience and access and speedy inward remittance transactions.”
He added, “With this partnership, we aim to become one of the leading inward remittance distribution networks in India and reaffirm our consumer commitment as a comprehensive payment solutions provider.”
Naveen Surya, managing director, ItzCash, said, “From the inception, we have been offering digital payments especially for the mass middle class in the country. Our leadership in this space coupled with our distribution especially in Tier II & Tier III locations will add lots more value to the end consumer. We are very upbeat about this association with our esteemed partner, Thomas Cook India.”
ItzCash is the first company to be issued the Certificate of Authorisation by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) under the Payment and Settlement area and with a network of over 75000 consumer touch points.
