Local money transfer firm sees growth in remittances

CEBU, Philippines - Having the widest network of branches nationwide with over 1,200 locations and over 70 international partners overseas, M. Lhuillier Philippines continues to see growth in its business operations especially in its remittance segment.

In an interview with M. Lhuillier Philippines vice president Michael L. Lhuillier, he said that although the volume of their remittance has plateaud, growth is still evident and if both their domestic and international remittances were lumped together, it can be noted that the whole pie has been growing.

He said that on an average, overseas Filipino workers deployed from abroad send around $200 to $300 dollars while domestic money transfer is smaller in value but higher in frequency.

“Banks have higher principal and capable of servicing higher remittances but we are also capable of doing the same although we are preferred for smaller amounts with higher frequency for convenience of both sender and receiver,” said Lhuillier.

He said that their locations have helped them grow their Kwarta Padala transfer, which started in 1996, as they can now easily dispatch cash in a faster way to different parts of the country.

The service started from a vision to service students nationwide but it grew beyond expectations and now the domestic remittances segment has been having big take ups since then, said Lhuillier.

Right now, M. Lhuillier is looking at tapping the nine million OFW deployed abroad and they have started this plans by opening an office in Los Angeles which services the North America and Canada market, considering a big bulk of OFWs in these areas.

Lhuillier said that aside from the US market, they are looking at tapping big markets like Middle East, Europe and Asia where OFW populations are also big.

With the proliferation of electronic transfers offered by the telecommunications industry, M. Lhuillier is now facing challenges but they are keen on still getting ahead as pioneers of this particular service in the country.

“The telco industry is indeed getting space in the electronic money transfer although they provide a different kind of service. But just as they are innovating, we are also innovating and trying to increase further our locations to expand our reach both nationwide and abroad,” said Lhuillier.

He said that to further intensify their money transfer services in the market they are also currently establishing more 24 hours and seven days a week branches in the country’s key cities and right now they have this in Cebu, Manila and Davao.

Right now, they have already started diversifying their services through tapping the corporate market as well as various government and church organizations.

M. Lhuillier now services Philhealth collections, NSO birth certificate and marriage certificate transactions, GSIS pension deliveries, company tie ups for payroll, collection of tidings for churches and the recent Jollibee Padala service.

In terms of expansion, M. Lhuillier is looking at opening 

1, 500 locations nationwide within two to three years and they are still trying to make a decision if they will venture into franchising because so far the 1, 200 locations are all company-owned and operated.

“We want to cover a wide scale of the Philippine archipelago so when opportunity presents itself we will open more locations so we can put one in every municipality. With more locations, we can have more reach. We are also looking at getting into other markets abroad so we can serve more Filipinos,” said Lhuillier.

He also bared plans of launching new services to enhance their business and one of the first that they have done so far is to put up an in-house call center that tends to the feedbacks, complaints, customer service inquiries on lending and other concerns of their client-base nationwide.