At the event hyperWALLET was pleased to announce an exciting new offering that credit unions in Canada can now offer their members – online global money transfer services.  hyperWALLET was also on hand to introduce attendees to the opportunity that exists for them in the global money transfer services market, and how hyperWALLET can assist with a successful launch of the new remittance service.   

According to Aite Group, “cross-border transfers will grow 8% between 2006 and 2010…. by 2010, global workers’ remittances will amount to US$456 billion, up from US$369 billion in 2007”. With such strong growth statistics being reported, hyperWALLET sees a significant opportunity for the Canadian credit unions to tap into the international remittances market by offering competitive global money transfer products, particularly to ethnic communities that send money home on a regular basis.

Despite strong consumer demand for such services, Canadian credit unions have previously not had a cost-effective way to offer these services in order to compete with similar offerings from the Canadian banks, or even against traditional retail money transfer operators.  Instead, credit union members have been forced to seek out these alternative service providers that are in most cases more expensive and less convenient. 

Through hyperWALLET, any credit union member can now make global electronic funds transfers from their online banking to over 30 countries worldwide for just $7.00 (CAD) per transaction.  The recipient receives instant electronic notification and can direct the payment to the destination bank account of their choice. 

At that price point, the service provides significant cost-savings and convenience for both the sender and recipient compared to wire transfers, remittance services offered by banks (such as Royal Bank’s International Remittance service at $13.50/per transaction) and other retailers of money transfer services. 

Going forward, hyperWALLET will be expanding the reach of the service even further to include more countries and cashout options for recipients on a worldwide basis. Check back with us regularly for more product announcements regarding this and other new services.

While we are there, I’m looking forward to meeting the operators of next-generation services like M-Pesa and Zap in Kenya,  Wing in Cambodia, and PayMate in India.   These initiatives represent great correspondent partners for hyperWALLET  as we march toward our goal of commerce-enabling humanity.   The banking industry has employed a correspondent-clearer relationship model for decades – its time for electronic and mobile payment services operators to develop similar strategies, which will yield service benefits to their customers and commercial benefit to themselves.

But I’m keen to also meet with technology platform and service competitors as we vie for the attention of the largest multinational mobile operators.  My motivation doesn’t arise from the usual “keep your enemies close” mentality, either.  Its because after 9 years in the payments industry, I’ve come to appreciate that today’s cut-throat competitor is next-week’s RFP collaborator, or could very well be one’s processing saviour when a policy change at a clearing bank leaves one in a lurch.