annual report1-final.qxd - Overseas Indian

Plenary Session 3
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram ar the plenary session on ‘Remittance Services’ in Hyderabad on January 8, 2006.
projects in two States in India to begin with. !
PLENARY III
REMITTANCE SERVICES
Chair:
Guest of Honour:
Opening Remarks:
Presentation:
Oscar Fernandes,
MOS (IC)
P. Chidambaram,
Minister for Finance, GoI
S. Krishna Kumar,
Secretary, MOIA
Dr. P.J. Nayak,
Chairman, UTI Bank
S. Krishna Kumar, Secretary, MOIA, in his introductory
remarks, mentioned that Indian overseas
workers constituted a unique part of the diaspora. A
World Bank report, ‘Global Economic Prospects’,
mentioned that remittances of non-resident Indians
(NRIs) to India were around $21.7 billion in the last
year. The MOIA felt that remittance is an area of concern,
which should be attended to immediately. There
are primarily two concerns: reducing transaction
costs of remittances and converting the saving potential
of overseas Indians into investments. The main
objective of the session was to address these two
issues.
Dr. P.J. Nayak, Chairman, UTI Bank, explained the
process of e-remittance. He identified three areas of
concern in the remittances by NRIs: speed, cost and
convenience. Today, technology is playing a vital role
in improving the banking services, he said.
Announcing that the UTI Bank has developed a
remittance gateway, he said that this portal would
enable NRIs and PIOs to remit money to India to a
designated account in any of the 14,500 branches,
operating on Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS). The
remittance through this gateway could be made at a
very low cost, in real time from anywhere through
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