Fueled by an increase in migrant workers and foreign students, MoneyGram has experienced consistent growth in its send and receive volumes since it began offering services in Malaysia in 2007. Last year alone, MoneyGram experienced a 30 percent increase in transaction volume.

Speaking in conjunction with MoneyGram's annual Asia Pacific Agent Conference, held for the first time in Malaysia amidst the beautiful backdrop of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, MoneyGram Chairman and CEO Pamela H. Patsley said that Malaysia has the potential to be one of the largest Southeast Asian remittance markets within MoneyGram's global network due to positive year-over-year growth figures and encouraging responses from its agents and customers.

"Malaysia is one of our top countries where we are putting our focus in Asia Pacific. Our plan is to leverage our extensive global network of 227,000 locations in 190 countries and territories to become the money transfer provider of choice," said Patsley. "We continue to grow our network to ensure that money transfer recipients can collect their money quickly and conveniently. Further, MoneyGram has expanded its corridors to meet the growing customer demand to send from Malaysia to India, Cambodia and China."

In 2010, the global remittance business exceeded USD 400 billion, an increase of 6 percent over 2009. According to the World Bank, Malaysia currently ranks sixth on the list of top 10 send countries with a remittance outflow of about USD 7 billion annually. This reinforces Malaysia's key position for MoneyGram as a continuously growing send market within the Asia Pacific region.

Since 2007, MoneyGram has worked through Maybank, a strategic agent, in building an extensive service network throughout Malaysia. Beginning with 58 branches, Maybank has expanded its MoneyGram services to its more than 400 branch locations nationwide. This explosive growth provides convenience to more people who need or wish to remit money to the over 190 countries within MoneyGram's global network.

Much like with Maybank, MoneyGram will also grow its send volume throughout its existing agent network, which is a combination of bank and non-bank agents. MoneyGram currently operates in close to 600 locations in Malaysia with Maybank leading the charge nationwide followed by non-bank agents, such as International Money Express (IME) (58 locations), Prabu Money Transfer (30 locations), EZ Money Express (5 locations in Sabah) and soon, SMJ (5 locations in Sabah).