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iRemit Inc. disclosed on Monday that funds sent home by overseas
Filipinos surged higher in January, bulk of which came from the
Middle East, while its market share inched up year on year due to
strategic partnerships and marketing initiatives.
In its report to the Philippine Stock Exchange,
the company said that remittances during that month grew by 55
percent over last year, which was higher than the 15-percent year-
on-year industry growth of $1.3 billion reported by the Bangko
Sentral ng Pilipinas. During the same period, the country’s
largest Filipino-owned non-bank remittance firm also saw an increase
of 0.6 percent in its market share to 5.9 percent over last year.
Funds sent from the Middle East, which made up
most of the increase in remittances, grew by 108 percent while
remittances from the Asia Pacific Region grew by 59 percent.
Last year, the company also saw a 37.2-percent
growth to $762.3 million in transaction volume, allowing iRemit to
outpace the industry growth rate of 13.2 percent to $14.4 billion in
inbound remittances.
“We constantly reach out to Filipinos abroad
by improving our marketing and operational tactics and by offering
wider choices of remittance methods to our clients,” Harris
Jacildo, iRemit president and chief operating officer, said.
To corner a bigger share of the remittance
business, iRemit has widened its network in countries where there is
a high-density population of overseas Filipinos through tie-ups with
several companies the latest of which were in Brunei and New
Zealand. Meanwhile, it has increased its payout centers in the
Philippines to 2,800.
At present, iRemit operates in 25 countries in
four continents. It has set up its own offices in Australia, UK,
Canada, Austria, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore and tied up
with local firms to establish presence in Spain, The Netherlands,
Ireland, Italy, USA, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel,
Kuwait, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, Marshall Islands, Saipan and
Bermuda.
At end-September last year, iRemit’s profits
jumped by 176 percent to P78.2 million as revenues grew 43.5 percent
to P283.8 million year on year. This was mainly fueled by the
36-percent increase in remittance volume to $537 million, compounded
by the growth of net income margins by almost double to 27.5 percent
in existing international and domestic networks.
-- Likha C. Cuevas-Miel
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