TerraPay has partnered with Beyon Money to enhance outward remittances from Bahrain in key corridors.
The London-based cross-border payment services provider announced the partnership in a press release on Monday (Feb. 6).
Through the collaboration, customers of Beyon Money, which bills itself as “a financial services super app,” will be able to make instant payments to India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon, Ghana, Thailand and Indonesia, per the release.
Calling Beyon Money “one of the most reliable financial partners in Bahrain,” TerraPay Co-founder and COO Ram Sundaram said in the release, “Together, we will make digital transactions more secure and faster for Bahrain remitters and customers. This association will further enhance interconnectivity, interoperability, and financial integration between domestic and cross-border digital payments.”
The deal with TerraPay is the second remittance partnership Beyon has announced in recent months. In December, the firm teamed up with MoneyGram to enable Beyon users to send money to more than 200 countries.
Demand for remittance services in Bahrain is fueled by its sizable ex-pat population, creating additional demand in the most popular corridors.
For example, last year the Indian embassy in the country reported that Indian nationals made up around 350,000 of the nearly 650,000 expatriates residing in Bahrain. It listed the Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Pakistani, Filipino and Indonesian communities as the next largest.
Outside of Bahrain, other countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are in a similar situation regarding the financial needs of migrants.
In an interview with PYMNTS, Amir Fardghassemi, founder and CEO at United Arab Emirates-based financial app Jingle Pay, explained why cross-border remittances are so important for these workers.
“It’s almost a religious thing where they support their families, they’re working here [and] they send money back home regularly,” he said.
Both Jingle Pay and Beyon Money are eager to tout their super app credentials. By combining the features of a mobile wallet with additional functionality such as remittances, the two companies are looking to take advantage of the rising demand for such services in the region.
In Monday’s release, TerraPay said the transaction value of digital remittances in Bahrain is estimated to have been $151 million in 2022. With a projected annual growth rate of 9.55%, the company anticipates the value to increase to $238.20 million by 2027.
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