User Menu

Announcements

Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka state bank in deal to boost remittances from Jordan

Saturday, 25 September 2010 13:48

Attention: open in a new window. Print

Source: Lanka Business Online

Sri Lanka's state-run National Savings Bank (NSB) has inked inked a deal with a financial partner in Jordan as part of a bid to expand its remittance business tenfold over two years, officials said.

NSB announced a deal with JRM Alami and Partners Exchange Company in Jordan Monday to help channel remittances of Sri Lankan expatriates in that country more easily.

Last year expatriate Sri Lankans working in the Middle East, Far East and Europe sent 3.3 billion dollars to the country officially.

"We are enjoying only 0.7 to 0.8 percent of this market," Predeep Kariyawasam, chairman of state owned NSB told reporters after announcing the link with JRM Alami.

"We want to get 7.5 percent of the remittance market in another two years."

JRM Alami and Partners Exchange Company is a unit of the Al-Alami group of Jordan which also has business interest in construction, building material, tiles and tourism sectors, officials said.

JRM Alami is the largest foreign exchange payment service in Jordan, Kariyawasam said.

"There are over 100 small money exchanges in Jordan," he said.

Kariyawasam said Omar Al-Alami, director of the JRM Alami group, who was in Colombo to sign the agreement, would sign up smaller money exchanges to act as agents after his return to Jordan.

About 50,000 Sri Lankans are working in Jordan, Andrayas Mohottala, Sri Lankan ambassador to Jordan said.

"They remit roughly about 100 to 150 dollars per month," he said.