Filipinos in the UAE, numbering approximately one million by various accounts, send money to their loved ones back home every payday, with an average bracket amount of Dh2,000-Dh3,000, a straw poll by The Filipino Times showed.
This puts them among the most preferred market by remittance companies, noting that they comprise up to 20 percent of the business footfall and how “extremely loyal” they can be as customers.
Sudhesh Giriyan, Xpress Money COO, said Filipinos, who account for nearly 15 percent of the company’s customer base, “are a very dedicated lot, many of them, young breadwinners who leave their immediate families back home for a better job opportunity.”
“Filipinos are hard-working and dedicated. Family is one of their most important priorities. They are constantly looking out for convenient, secure and affordable means of transferring funds to their family members,” he said.
Edwin Punzalan, senior manager at Banco de Oro (BDO), a Philippine –based bank with direct remit partnership with Dubai’s Emirates NBD, for his part, said Filipinos are the company’s second biggest market after Indians.
He said BDO has a 10-percent share of the Filipino market in the UAE. On average, he added, Filipinos send between Dh1,800 and Dh2,000 home through BDO.
Rajiv Raipancholia, CEO at Orient Exchange, said Filipinos comprise 35 percent of their company’s footfall; 16 percent it is for Altaf Ahmed, co-founder of Remitr, a mobile phone app that enables a customer to send money home 24×7 thru the mobile phone.
Raipancholia said remittance to Philippines accounts for around 25 percent of Orient Exchange’s overall remittance revenues.
“It is a very important market as there are over 900,000 Filipinos in UAE,” he said. “They are doing quite well in the service-oriented industry and this market has been growing at a fast pace over the past few years,” Raipancholia added.
Mo Purple C. Juachon, senior relationship officer at Al Rostamani International Exchange, said the company “considers Filipinos as among our most important corridors in the retail remittance business.”
He said Filipinos send on average Dh1,500 every month with some sending more especially during the holidays and special occasions.
Instant Cash CEO Philip Daniel, for his part said he considers Filipinos “very important” as they are “one of our fastest growing markets, bringing in considerable revenue into our business.”
“In fact,” he said, “we’ve increased the budget set aside for our Philippine market compared to 2016.”
The same can be said of other companies. (Jojo Dass)
Photo Credit: Maybank
