New Partnership Facilitates Blockchain Remittances from Thailand to Myanmar

This article was first published here

Singaporean Fintech firm, Everex, has partnered with Shwe Bank in Myanmar to facilitate instant blockchain powered remittances between Thailand and Myanmar.

The objective of the partnership is to allow migrant workers from Myanmar living in Thailand to remit money home instantly, at a much lower cost and more securely than using traditional systems.

It comes as no surprise that the remittance industry is among the top beneficiaries of blockchain technology. The advantages of the innovation on this sector are easy to point out.

Compared to traditional remittance systems, the offer much higher transaction speeds, are easily auditable due to the decentralized framework and incur negligible costs.

For the global migrant community members who have to send money home to their families frequently, these factors have contributed to a high adoption rate.

Data from the UN Migration Agency estimates the total of Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand to be around three million.

In a bid to avoid the high fees required by mainstream remittance companies, some of these workers use crude money transfer methods, leading to high risk.

Shwe Bank’s executive vice chair, U Thein Zaw said the following:

“Myanmar people working in Thailand are foreign currency earners of our country, and their hard-earned money is at risk when they send it home via informal channels”.

He added, “I look forward to working with Everex and expect this technology to greatly improve financial inclusion for Myanmar migrant workers”.

Under the new partnership, money transfers will take less than a minute and create a clear audit trail for overseas workers.

Shwe Bank is also working to enhance financial inclusion for the unbanked and underbanked population in the country. To this end, it is making use of financial technology in all of its 410 banking agencies to offer clients in rural areas high quality services.