Mastercard has partnered with Home Remitt to enable migrants living in South Africa to safely and conveniently send money in near real-time to their family and friends back home.
This secure and reliable service will offer individuals an opportunity to save on the soaring remittance costs that currently characterise the South African cross-border payments market.
Through this partnership, Home Remitt integrated Mastercard Cross-Border Services into its money transfer service, providing migrants with an affordable means to send money to millions of bank accounts, mobile wallets and cash pick up locations in India, Bangladesh, Kenya, and Pakistan, with other countries to be enabled in the near future.
According to the World Bank, South Africa remains the most expensive G20 country from which to send money from with the average cost being 14.56 percent of the total transaction amount. Historically, a lack of transparency around fees and charges and uncertainty around speed has meant that many still opt to travel back home in person or use informal methods to deliver funds rather than rely on formal cross-border payments.
Through the Home Remitt service, customers enjoy significantly cheaper transaction costs and increased peace of mind as the service is backed by a trusted and reputable brand. Recipients no longer need to wait several days to receive their funds.
Mohamed Cajee, Managing Director of Home Remitt, says that the partnership with the payment giant represents a gateway for entering the South African market: “Our partnership with Mastercard comes at a time when there is a growing need for people to adopt new technologies and embrace digital money transfer to get vital funds back home – something that has only accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. We will continue to support the evolving needs of our customers as we develop and implement new technology to deliver a safe, convenient and affordable remittance service.”
Home Remitt joins a growing list of global partners working with Mastercard to offer people and businesses a more predictable and more certain way to pay and get paid across borders. This partnership further supports Mastercard’s multi-rail proposition – enabling people and organisations to send money how, where and when they choose. Mastercard Cross-Border Services connects 90 percent of the world’s population via bank accounts, digital wallets, cards and cash agents, all through a single and secure point of access.
“Providing people with choice is at the heart of what we do at Mastercard. Be it domestic or cross-border payments, we want to empower people to decide what method of payment best fits their needs at a particular moment. We are excited to partner with an innovative company such as Home Remitt to enable migrants in South Africa to cost-effectively send money back home,” says Gabriel Swanepoel, Country Manager of Mastercard South Africa.
