Arab postal organisations take part in workshop

Twenty-two Arab postal organisations took part in a workshop to familiarise themselves with the International Financial System (IFS), a low-cost post-to-post money transfer system, which is backed by the Universal Postal Union (UPU).

Twenty-two Arab postal organisations took part in a workshop to familiarise themselves with the International Financial System (IFS), a low-cost post-to-post money transfer system, which is backed by the Universal Postal Union (UPU).

The workshop was part of an exercise to implement the IFS system in Arab countries, offering people a cheaper but technologically advanced remittance service through the postal network. The participants got to understand the technical and operational aspects of the IFS.

The workshop was inaugurated by Salem Al Shaya, assistant director general of operations for Emirates Post, who in his opening address urged Arab countries to implement the IFS for the benefit of thousands of low-income people who are looking for cost-effective remittance options.

“The IFS will allow the Arab region and countries in Asia and Africa to provide reliable and cost-effective money transfer services through secure channels to migrant workers,” said Al Shaya. “The service has huge potential as the Arab world has a large concentration of expatriates and migrant workers.”

Sufian Bali from Tunisia Post presented an overview of the system and explained the technical features: “IFS basically handles cross-border person-to-person payments of relatively low value. It has proved successful in countries where it has been tried out. We expect more countries to adopt the system this year.”

The IFS is a UPU initiative to provide postal customers access to secure money transfer services for rural populations, and more specifically for migrant workers. Arab countries like Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates have already joined the IFS network, and others are in the process of joining.

UPU’s IFS is a reliable, adaptable and easy-to-use tool and can be installed in the remotest areas of the world. The UPU anticipates that financial services could generate up to 50% of a country’s postal revenues, and by promoting IFS, the dominance of big players would be reduced, thus offering customers, especially migrant workers, a cost-effective system of electronic money transfer.