SBI opens remittance centre in Singapore

Published on Authored by C to I News Desk

For helping overseas Indians send money to their relatives back home, the State Bank of India (SBI) has opened its first remittance outlet in Singapore.

Christened ‘Ezy Remit’, the centre is conveniently located at a worker’s dormitory at PPT Lodge in Punggol towards the North East part of Singapore.

H.E. Jawed Ashraf (extreme left), India’s High Commissioner to Singapore, Soma Shankara Prasad, SBI's Country Head of Singapore, Ambassador K Kesavapany, former Director of Institute of Southest Asian Studies and Anjana Tandon, SBI's Head of Retail Banking (extreme right) during the opening of SBI's first Remittance Centre in Singapore. Photo courtesy: Twitter@/IndiainSingapor
H.E. Jawed Ashraf (left), India’s High Commissioner to Singapore, Soma Shankara Prasad, SBI's Country Head of Singapore, Ambassador K Kesavapany, former Director of Institute of Southest Asian Studies and Anjana Tandon, SBI's Head of Retail Banking (extreme right) during the opening of SBI's first Remittance Centre in Singapore. Photo courtesy: SBI

The outlet offers remittance services to India and Bangladesh available to all registered remittance customers of SBI. The customer can choose to debit his SBI account or pay via NETS or cash to send money to India and Bangladesh.

The core objective of opening a remittance outlet at a dormitory is to reach out to the migrant workers and help them remit their money through banking channel.

Jawed Ashraf, India’s High Commissioner to Singapore, inaugurated the remittance centre. He observed that the opening of the centre will reduce the worker’s time to travel to main banks and branches in city areas.

Speaking on the occasion, Soma Sankara Prasad, SBI's Country Head of Singapore, said, “The opening of the remittance centre is in line with the Singapore government's initiative of providing doorstep facilities for the workers living in dormitories.”

“Construction and marine industry workers can remit to their homes in India and Bangladesh in rupee and taka, respectively,” he added.

India has topped the list with USD68 billion of remittance inflows last year, followed closely by China with USD63.93 billion. Now, the rupee remittances have become easier with online transactions and the spread of remittance points in Singapore.

There are multiple modes of money transfers in Singapore including Rupee Remittance App for Rupay-NETS which was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 31 during his visit to Singapore this year.

About 35 per cent of the 285,000 construction workers in Singapore are from India.

Notably, SBI was awarded the qualifying full bank license in 2008 and has 6 branches in Singapore. It has 25 ATMs across the island.

SBI is India’s premier banking group with assets of USD500 billion. It has been expanding its foothold in both Indian and foreign operations with a network of over 22500 branches in India and 205 offices worldwide spread across 35 geographies.