Wednesday, Nov 16, 2016

Abu Dhabi: Indian expatriates in the UAE are finding it hard to send money home for emergencies through instant money transfer services whose collection points in India do not have enough currency notes to disburse the money to the recipients.

The currency crunch in India following the government’s November 8 decision to demonetise Rs500 and rs1,000 notes with immediate effect has left some expatriates here helpless, as they do not have any legal means to send money to family members hospitalised back home.

Abdul Kareem, 56, in Dubai could not send Rs25,000 (Dh1,350) through an instant money transfer service to pay the hospital bills of her daughter who delivered her first baby. The money exchange staff said the collection point at his hometown, Trichi in Tamil Nadu in south India, does not have enough currency notes. “The private hospital is not accepting demand draft or direct bank transfer to avoid tax obligation,” he said.

Bank transfer is not an option now as the local bank told him it cannot permit anyone to withdraw more than Rs4,000 a day. “Although official announcement mentioned the withdrawal limit of up to Rs10,000 a day and Rs24,000 a week, the reality is different. The bank says it does not have enough stock of currencies,” Abdul Kareem said.

Sudhesh Giriyan, COO of Xpress Money, told Gulf News on Wednesday: “Owing to the current situation in the country, money transfer brands such as ours are able to disburse only small amounts in cash to our customers in India. To ease out the situation, we are providing our customers with cheques or online transfers to their bank accounts, if the payout amounts are on the higher side.”

Expressing regret over customers’ inconvenience, he said the situation would return to normal over the next few days.

A call centre agent of Wall Street Exchange said some of its collection points in India are giving cheques to the clients. “Customers can directly check with the collection points whether they can get cash or cheque,” she said.

Sudheer Shetty, president of the UAE Exchange that also facilitates instant money transfers, told Gulf News that as the situation in India was improving, the collection points of instant transfer services would be able to give cash instead of cheques soon.

Many Indian expatriates said they found it useless to send money to banks. “My father-in-law’s bypass surgery was postponed because there was no way to withdraw Rs400,000 I sent from here to the bank in Chennai in India,” said Akbar Ali, 50, who works in an automobile company in Dubai. The family managed to get Rs100,000 towards the bills for initial treatments and tests like angiogram and got the patient discharged from the hospital. “Now we have to wait for the end of this currency crisis to make a new appointment for the surgery,” Ali said.

A social worker in Abu Dhabi said many families [of Indian expatriates] in India were finding it difficult to buy even groceries due to currency crunch. “More than 70 per cent of Indian expatriates’ families are back home, which are run by their wives who have a tough time to queue up at the banks several times to withdraw the money sent by their husbands,” Suresh Padoor said. “Women are the worst hit,” he said.

By Binsal Abdul Kader Senior Reporter

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