Private lender Kotak Mahindra Bank has partnered with Avenues India — a fintech offering payment gateway solutions and launched an Aadhaar-based instant forex remittance solution.
Named as “Kotak Remit” will assist the customers and non-customers in sending money overseas online via a dedicated portal.
“The transaction can be completed instantly. We use Aadhaar-based authentication, which eliminates the need for another leg in the transaction,” said Deepak Sharma, Chief Digital Officer, Kotak Mahindra Bank.
The bank is currently targeting the outward remittance market comprising of various heads under which individuals can send up to $25,000 overseas annually. These include diverse heads, namely education, maintenance of close relatives, purchase of property, investment in overseas equity and in medical treatment.
“We are allowing customers to send up to $25,000 and non-customers up to $10,000,” said Sharma.
With the help this the customers would be able to initiate the process within their net banking services and the non-customers can access the portal from the bank’s pre-log in web page.
According to official statistics, Indians send $8.2 billion abroad last year under the Liberalised Exchange Rate Management Scheme (LERMS).A majority of this ($2.6 billion) was spent in travel, while $2.2 billion was invested in maintenance of close relatives. Another $1.5 billion were sent for studies abroad. The remittances can be done in 15 currencies and generally take 48 hours to four days to get credited in the beneficiary’s bank account.
