Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (Adib), a leading Islamic financial
institution, has launched instant fund tranfers from the UAE to recipients in
India.
The service is available 24/7 and allows customers to use
their mobile application or internet banking to make transfers without the need
to withdraw cash or visit a transfer office. Customers also receive updates and
notifications, including an optional receipt for confirming delivery of the
funds.
The service was launched in partnership with SWIFT, a
financial messaging services provider, and ICICI, an Indian clearing bank. The
partnership links SWIFT’s Global Payments Innovation (gpi) to Adib and ICICI’s
local infrastructure. It eliminates delays, provides a fast, secure, and
convenient way to transfer funds.
SWIFT gpi Instant
Previously, cross-border fund transfers would often be
delayed when being processed by the local clearing infrastructure. The
introduction of SWIFT gpi Instant eliminates these delays, providing a fast,
secure, and convenient way to transfer funds.
The UAE is the second largest remittance sender in the
world, while India is the largest recipient of remittances. With over
3.5million Indian citizens working in the UAE, the initiative targets a key
country for UAE remittances.
Samih Awadhalla, Acting Global Head of Retail Banking Group
said: “UAE is considered one of the largest remittance senders to India, with
most remittance going through non-bank providers. This initiative allows Adib
to efficiently capture a greater share of the growing remittance market and
enhance our customers’ experience.
Digital transformation
“With this new launch, Adib strengthens its commitment
towards digital transformation and innovation and cements its status as the
preferred financial partner in the UAE. Our partnership with SWIFT and ICICI
Bank is in line with the Bank’s overall strategy of helping customers and
supporting them through ease of automation, convenience, and safety. It also demonstrates our focus on leveraging
new evolving technologies and opportunities, offering customers with
feature-rich digital payments and remittance services.”
“The SWIFT gpi Instant service between UAE and India is the
latest to demonstrate how banks can leverage gpi to deliver instant account to
account payments and open new services and markets. This follows a similar
initiative in the UK, which is delivering cross-border payments via gpi into
the domestic Faster Payments System. SWIFT has also run pilots with market
infrastructures in Australia, Singapore, Europe and Malaysia, and we are in
discussions with market infrastructures in other locations as well,” said Sido
Bestani, Managing Director, Middle East Africa and Indian subcontinent.
Sriram H Iyer, Head - International Banking Group, ICICI
Bank said: “ICICI Bank has been a dominant player in inward remittances to
India, the largest recipient of cross-border remittances in the world. We were
the first bank in Asia-Pacific to go live with the ‘SWIFT gpi Instant’ solution
last year, which helps overseas partner banks to send instant remittances on
behalf of their customers to the beneficiary in India.
Enhanced convenience
“Under the partnership with Adib, ICICI Bank receives the
inward remittance request, being sent by Adib via ‘SWIFT gpi Instant’, and
processes it instantly. This service is part of our endeavour to offer enhanced
convenience to customers, enabling them with quick and hassle-free money
transfers.”
Over the last three years, Adib has made significant
investments in strategic technology initiatives to make banking more convenient
for its customers. This includes initiating a comprehensive re-architecture of
the bank’s technology as well as investing in advanced analytics and machine learning
services to help customers make more informed financial decisions.--
TradeArabia News Service
http://www.tradearabia.com/news/BANK_402604.html