MoneyGram Teams With Beyon to Boost Real-Time Payments

Money transfer firm MoneyGram has teamed with Bahrain’s Beyon Money for a collaboration that lets Beyon users send money to more than 200 countries in near real time.

“The Beyon Money super app enables consumers in Bahrain to connect to local bank accounts to review all transactions in one place, access financial insights to observe transactions and spending habits, and send money abroad to many countries around the world,” MoneyGram said in a news release Monday (Nov. 14). “This partnership with MoneyGram will complement the app’s existing services by enhancing its remittance capabilities.”

MoneyGram said in the release the service is expected to go live this year.

The collaboration with Beyon Money builds upon recent work with other partners in the Middle East, which is one of the biggest, fastest-growing outbound remittance regions in the world, according to the release. MoneyGram cited data from the World Bank showing that outbound remittances from Bahrain in particular have been steadily rising in the last 20 years.

PYMNTS looked at the state of remittances in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region earlier this month in a conversation with Amir Fardghassemi, founder and CEO at United Arab Emirates-based financial super app Jingle Pay.

According to Fardghassemi, the GCC countries — which include Bahrain as well as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait — are home to a large population of expats who send money to other countries across the wider Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan (MENAP) region.

“It’s almost a religious thing where they support their families, they’re working here [and] they send money back home regularly,” he said of these workers.

This means the ability to transfer money instantly and in different forms of payout are critical to ease the process, Fardghassemi added.

To expand on its remittance services, Jingle Pay recently launched its own partnership with MoneyGram. It’s a move that Fardghassemi said opens up a lot of corridors for the firm.

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