Visa Inc. and Travelex Central Services Ltd. last week announced the launch of the Visa Money Transfer service in Australia.
The service enables Australian consumers to wire funds domestically and internationally via Travelex’s online portal. Consumers may send funds over the Visa network to Visa-branded credit, debit and prepaid card accounts.
Visa launched the service in Ukraine in 2003. It now offers it through 50 financial institutions in 14 countries, including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia and Sweden.
“The product launch with Travelex is another example of our ongoing momentum in the money-transfer space, following recent launches with ICBC in China and UAE Exchange in the United Arab Emirates,” a Visa spokesperson says.
Travelex is a British firm that distributes foreign-currency reloadable prepaid cards that offer consumers and corporations a locked-in foreign-exchange rate. It partnered with Visa in Australia because Australia has a diverse multicultural population, and the number of overseas personal remittances made from there is very high, according to Nik Ehnbom, Travelex regional marketing manager for the Asia-Pacific area.
Figures from the World Bank estimate cross-border remittances from Australia annually total US$3 billion.
Visa decided to work with Travelex because “its expertise and scale as one of the world's largest international foreign-exchange and payments specialists is a great match with Visa’s secure, global payment-processing network,” the spokesperson says.
The agreement also enables Travelex to expand into other financial-services areas. “Having already secured a foothold in the foreign-currency market, our participation in Visa Money Transfer opens us up to an entirely new segment–those consumers looking to transfer money conveniently from person to person,” Graham Perry, Travelex global sales and strategic relationships director, says in a statement.
Australian consumers pay a flat fee of AU$9.95 (US$8.95) per transfer. The minimum transfer is AU$100, and the maximum is AU$2800.
“Currently, traditional forms of personal remittances can cost anywhere from AU$50 to AU$90 per transfer, depending on which method you use, how much you send and where to,” according to Ehnbom.
Travelex plans to offer the Visa service in other markets, but Ehnbom could not say when it would do so.
