Terra, a mobile-first international payment network, incubated by Mahindra Comviva, today, announced the launch of Terra Pulse to help financial authorities and regulators accurately measure mobile-powered international remittances.
Terra provides the rails for international transfers by interconnecting digital wallet service providers, foreign exchange houses and remittance companies. As a regulated entity, Terra maintains an audit trail of all inbound and outbound transactions processed by its network. Central regulators and financial reporting agencies benefit from a single view of transactions originating or leaving their respective countries, with an option to obtain a drill down view at a per corridor, partner and customer level. The reporting frequency and range of reports can be customized, based on each country’s requirements.
Terra Pulse, additionally, exposes APIs to enable partners, in particular smaller, local remittance companies, comply with in-country reporting regulations as well as understand performance trends, without the need for additional investments in expensive reporting and analytic tools. Terra Pulse can scale to handle high volumes of transactions whilst maintaining data integrity.
Commenting on Terra Pulse, Ambar Sur, Founder and CEO Terra, said, “In the next three years, the mobile would emerge as the dominant channel for cross-border transfers. Terra is defining the standards for mobile-powered international payments. The problem associated with data compilation is real, and no country has found a perfect solution. Terra addresses the need for a reliable data source by enforcing network-wide standards for counting, data compilation and reporting. This would go a long way towards understanding the nature and quantity of flows and maximizing the developmental impact of remittances.”
In developing countries, migrant remittances equal US$440 billion[i], a figure three times higher than the volume of official aid flows. From a macro-perspective, cross-border transfers are vital in terms of economic stability generated by the receipt of large capital inflows as well as in terms of overall development potential.
According to the World Bank, less than two-thirds of African countries, however, report data on remittances. For regulators, the ability to reliably track, monitor and measure remittance flows is essential to obtain meaningful insights on market trends and define appropriate growth-oriented policies for the industry. Most economies encounter several challenges in capturing and reporting remittance data, making it less reliable than other line constituents in the balance of payment accounts. Remittance data is fragmented and needs to be federated from multiple service providers, corridors and touch points. The complexity is compounded by the existence of disparate data sources, the use of proprietary data formats, the lack of standardized compilation models as well as varying levels of reporting granularity.