No other country in the world is more familiar, and reliant on money remittance services than the Philippines. With more than 10 million Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) around the globe, the influx of foreign currency already accounts for 9.8% of the country’s GDP, which usually peaks around Christmas season.
“Close to US$30 billion in remittances flowed into the Philippines in 2016 according to the
World Bank. With such robust activity coupled with consistent growth year-on- year, it makes perfect sense for Remitly to bolster operations here.” – Remitly’s Global Chief Product Officer Karim Meghji.
While Remitly’s Philippine Office is mainly composed of Customer Service Representatives, the company plans to hire software engineers from the country to improve its products and services.
Meghji mentioned that the company is now looking into acquiring new technologies to make it the service choice of Filipinos across the globe.
Just recently, Remitly launched a service that lets Filipino seafarers to send money without having to leave the ship, saving up to 8% in remittance fees and precious time spent just waiting at the port.
The company even enables its own employees to help Filipino students in paying for their education costs through the Remitly Scholarship Program. In just three years, about PhP7.65m has already been sent to scholars.
Meghji added that they are now on the lookout for new trends that they can use to further improve their products and give customers the best experience possible. This could include Bitcoin and Etherium, cryptocurrencies that can be used in exchange for goods and services, though not bound by any regulating body.
For more information regarding Remitly, you may visit their official website, or download the Remitly app from the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store. You may also check out their blog here.
Emman has been writing technical and feature articles since 2010. Prior to this, he became one of the instructors at Asia Pacific College in 2008, and eventually landed a job as Business Analyst and Technical Writer at Integrated Open Source Solutions for almost 3 years.
