Bank Negara approves InstaRem mobile app for easy money transfer

KUALA LUMPUR: InstaRem Malaysia Sdn Bhd, a digital cross-border payments company, sees Malaysia as a large market for its digital remittance services.

Chief business officer Pratik Gandhi said there is a fair amount of expatriates in the country who are sending money in and out of Malaysia.

“Malaysia is a natural progression from where we are based, which is in Singapore.

“Malaysia is fairly dominated by banks but we feel it is right for us to be here, especially when technological disruption is concerned,” he told reporters at the official launch of the platform here today.

InstaRem has licences to operate in eight markets covering 40 countries, reaching 3.2 billion people in developed and developing countries.

It previously expanded its footprint into the EU with the opening of an office in Lithuania in September 2017.

It will start operations in India, next month, having received approval from the Reserve Bank of India.

The company also aims to began operations in Indonesia and New Zealand by the end of this year after obtaining necessary approvals.

Instarem hopes to open a branch office in Japan by the first half of 2018.

According to Pratik, InstaRem has a daily ticket transaction of US$2,000 and RM200,000 cap for business transactions.

It plans to get Bank Negara approval to raise this limit as demand increases.

Further, Pratik said Instarem hopes to collaborate with consumers and financial institutions in Malaysia and drive the adoption rate of technological innovations.

“We provide easy remittance services in many currencies with just a few clicks. Customers are able to track their transactions to the recipients. This can be conveniently done at home or wherever without the need to bring cash to the branches or counters,” he said.

He said via InstaRem, customers in Malaysia will now be able to enjoy cost-effective and fast cross-border money transfers on any currencies to over 60 countries with just a few clicks unlike conventional remittance companies.