07 Feb 2024
As a Gambian migrant in the UK, one of your greatest concerns is to save money on every money transfer from UK to Gambia. Finding a job in a country like the UK, however, is not that big a challenge because the UK has a robust economy with a thriving and expansive job market.
A Gainako report said that in 2020, around 141,000 Gambians lived outside of the Gambia.
Given your purpose of supporting your family financially, you have to ensure that the service provider you choose for transferring funds back home helps you with the purpose because the number of online money transfer service providers available to you is too high to count.
It makes selection difficult.
But have you ever thought about what to look for in a money transfer service provider? You can settle with several service features like speed, safety, and so on. These are important but may not be enough within the given context explained above.
Therefore, this blog will guide you about the 5 most important service features you need to look for in a remittance transfer service provider.
Let’s first understand online money transfers.
Unless you have understood the basics of online money transfers, you will not be able to fully appreciate which service features are critically important for you in your money transfers.
Online money transfer means transferring funds from one place to another, or one country to another for that matter, digitally using the internet and gadgets such as smartphones.
Driven by dazzling technology, online money transfers nowadays save you from a lot of hazards, including commuting, waiting in long queues at your service provider’s window, paperwork, and long waits for the transactions to be completed.
Therefore, if you want to send money to Gambia online from UK, nowadays, you only need your smartphone, an internet connection, and guess what else? Well, funds to transfer!
In today’s tech-driven world, the importance of online money transfers cannot be emphasized enough. The reasons are many. Online money transfers positively impact you financially because, as mentioned earlier, these transfers save you from commuting, which incurs costs.
Furthermore, in online money transfers, the margin for online scams is relatively less, although global fraud statistics point to otherwise.
But remember that falling victim to online fraud stems from not exercising care and caution.
You can enjoy an online transaction right from the middle of your comfort zone.
In short, if online money transfers were not important enough, millions of migrants worldwide would not have been drawn to this way of transferring funds in the first place.
To understand the importance of online money transfers, let’s look at how banks transfer funds across borders.
As the world’s biggest financial institutions, it was the banks that would transfer funds from one place to another and still do so, as a majority of the people still rely on banks for their credibility in offering financial services of different types.
However, some of the challenges that render banks unfit to send money online to Gambia from UK are discussed briefly below.
Even in the presence of the latest technology, banks still take between 3 and 5 business days to complete a transaction between two countries. This time can still extend depending on several factors like the quantum of amount, time to transfer, destination country, and so on.
Banks charge a high fee that can potentially throw your finances into disequilibrium. Even after charging a flat fee, banks will charge you more as their fee fluctuates with the amount, time, delivery type, and destination country.
As a Gambian migrant working in the UK, you naturally send the British currency back home through the banks. Right? So, the banks, while delivering funds to the recipient in the local currency in Gambia, charge you extra for currency conversion.
Depending on how far your bank is from your place of residence, your commute to and from the bank will essentially create commuting hazards for you, which again will burden you financially, which you might not be able to afford.
Some of the major types of online money transfers are listed below but remember that these online money transfer types are offered by the banks. Other remittance transfer service providers may offer you different types of money transfers.
You can use any of these options to send funds back home to Gambia from the UK after you have begun to earn a living there. Right?
Therefore, learn here the tips and techniques to make a living in the UK as an expatriate.
Let’s not look at the 5 things in an online money transfer service provider.
In the beginning, it was stated that you might settle for the speed and safety of your funds while choosing a service provider. But some of the companies like ACE Money Transfer offer you a lot more as they keep evolving with the ever-changing technological landscape.
Therefore, find the following 5 features while choosing a company.
Choose a service provider whose fee is not static and flat and is rather flexible to move upward or downward with the amount. In addition, look for live and market-competitive currency exchange rates instead of the fixed rates that most banks offer.
A long time in the delivery of funds can increase the margin for scams and online fraud. Therefore, choose a service provider that delivers funds within minutes instead of in hours, which most service providers offer as a standard time. It will add to your transaction’s safety.
While living abroad to earn a living to support your family financially, you, at times, need to send more and, at times, less. So, choose a company that does not restrict you from sending more at a time or less; otherwise, you might end up switching service providers, which is an impractical proposition.
Make sure to choose a service provider that offers you several payment methods to choose from. For example, you might want to send funds to a bank account back home or use a credit card for the transfer. So, choose a company that offers several payment options for transferring funds.
Some of the companies offer you a limited number of countries to send funds to. This, again, can cause trouble. So, choose a service provider that has several countries on its panel to send funds to. Make sure to choose a service provider that supports a wide range of countries.
If you send money to Gambia from UK with ACE Money Transfer, it will be your safest bet because you will get all the features listed above. The firm’s commitment to offering splendid remittance transfer services to you gives an amazing and pleasant experience deeply rooted in savings and cost-effectiveness as you might even enjoy fee-free transfers if the amount being transferred remains below a certain threshold!
An online money transfer is the process of sending funds from one place to another or one country to another through technology. Nowadays online money transfers are based on your smartphone, an internet connection, and funds to be transferred.
Online money transfers offer several advantages, the least of which are the financial benefits. Online money transfers save you from commuting hazards that incur costs; they are safe and swift, offer convenience, and are less expensive overall.
Millions of people worldwide still use banks to avail of different financial services but these institutions are unfit for transferring remittances as they take days to deliver funds, charge high fees, involve paperwork, incur commuting costs, and charge fees on currency conversions.
Some of the main online money transfer types the banks offer are IMPS (Immediate Payment Service), UPI (Unified Payment Interface), NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer), and RTGS (Real-Time Gross Settlement).
While choosing a remittance transfer service provider, essentially consider fees and currency exchange rates, speed and safety, limits on funds to be transferred, multiple payment methods, and the presence of multiple countries on the panel of your service provider to send funds to.
