I-Remit reports 42% growth for 2008

MANILA, Feb. 21 (PNA) — I-Remit, Inc. (iRemit), in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), reported it has posted 42 percent growth for 2008 with inward remittance volume reaching up to USD1.1 billion.

iRemit said these figures clearly outpaced the 13.1-percent growth projected by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for the Philippine remittance industry.

It reported it also enjoyed more marked increase in market share —from five percent in 2007 to eight percent this 2008.

”We are satisfied with our year-end performance despite the reported financial market strain in the last quarter. We made good progress in addressing the issues that negatively impacted our results. We continued to work on the strong momentum of the first and second quarters. We spread our market reach, ramped up our marketing programs, and further advanced activities on the product development front,” said iRemit president and chief operating officer Harris Jacildo.

The company also reported it has expanded its operations in the Pacific region –opened new branches in New Zealand, Perth and Liverpool, in Australia to widen its market reach.

iRemit said it is awaiting formal issuances of its licenses to operate in Italy and Macau.

The company said it has increased its business by engaging in simultaneous product launches. In 2008, iRemit improved and introduced three major products from the pipeline.

”First is the iPay services which include collection and acceptance of premiums and contribution payments from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to key government agencies (PAG-IBIG, SSS, Philhealth), real estate payments, pre-needs and insurances, and the bill payments facilities through iRemit Visa Card,” the company added.

”While these socially relevant services have offered in the previous years, we improved the system of collection using host-to-host and online facilities. We also expanded the services in almost all regions where we are present,” Jacildo added.

iRemit further said it has pioneered the use of the chip-debit card technology in the Philippines with the launch of the iRemit ShopNPay Visa Card which was introduced in September 2008.

He said the company issued 50,000 iRemit ShopNPay cards since its introduction with a reloading ratio of 60 percent.

This latest innovation reflects the company’s commitment in serving the OFW sector, he added.

Aside from this, the company also launched another product called IShop which offers a variety of gift package for its beneficiaries.