Wi­Pay Re­mit­tance yes­ter­day rolled out its part­ner­ship with home goods re­tail­er, Miguel Moses, to fa­cil­i­tate in­ter­na­tion­al mon­ey trans­fers that pro­vide cash pick­up lo­ca­tions in Trinidad.

The part­ner­ship of Wi­Pay and Miguel Moses have linked up with Ria Mon­ey Trans­fer, Pay­Pal, XOOM and Re­mit­ly to al­low re­cip­i­ents of funds sent via these plat­forms to col­lect their pay­outs at Miguel Moses lo­ca­tions on Fred­er­ick Street, in Port-of-Spain, Ch­agua­nas Main Road and 44 Queen St in Ari­ma.

This will pro­vide a faster, more con­ve­nient, and more af­ford­able way to ac­cess in­ter­na­tion­al re­mit­tances, Wi­Pay said in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

Wi­Pay spokes­men ex­plained yes­ter­day that pre­vi­ous­ly the com­pa­ny had pro­vid­ed re­mit­tance ser­vices through di­rect-to-bank de­posits, and di­rect-to-card trans­fers through its own Colour card.

The new part­ner­ships pro­vides a third op­tion of re­ceiv­ing TT-dol­lar cash when friends or fam­i­ly send them mon­ey from abroad. The new fa­cil­i­ty would al­so be use­ful for lo­cals op­er­at­ing an on­line store and do­ing in­ter­na­tion­al e-com­merce trans­ac­tions as well as those who do work for in­ter­na­tion­al clients.

As part of the launch pro­mo­tion: RIA will waive 50 per cent of trans­ac­tion fees for the first 200 cus­tomers and Miguel Moses will of­fer a $25 cash­back vouch­er—re­deemable at any of its 13 lo­ca­tions—for the first 300 users of the ser­vice.

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Miguel Moses, Michael Moses, said by be­com­ing a cash pick­up lo­ca­tion for Wi­Pay Re­mit­tance, it is eas­i­er for fam­i­lies across T&T to ac­cess their funds.

"This is just the start—we look for­ward to ex­pand­ing this arrange­ment across all 13 of our lo­ca­tions over time, en­sur­ing even more com­mu­ni­ties can ben­e­fit from this ser­vice.”

In the state­ment, Wi­Pay said it has worked with RIA for years, fa­cil­i­tat­ing re­mit­tances via di­rect bank de­posits.

This lat­est de­vel­op­ment in­tro­duces phys­i­cal cash pick­up lo­ca­tions, mak­ing it even eas­i­er for re­cip­i­ents to ac­cess their mon­ey, the lo­cal pay­ment ser­vices com­pa­ny said, adding that the mod­el will soon ex­pand to oth­er Wi­Pay ter­ri­to­ries.

Sae­lese Haynes, project lead and rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Wi­Pay Group, em­pha­sised the broad­er im­pli­ca­tions of the part­ner­ship: “Wi­Pay’s core mis­sion is fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion, and this part­ner­ship with Miguel Moses ex­pands fi­nan­cial ac­cess across T&T. While Wi­Pay has al­ways been a dig­i­tal-first so­lu­tion, the aim is to stream­line digi­ti­sa­tion ef­forts even to ex­pand the touch­points for and of lega­cy sys­tems and in­fra­struc­ture.

"By lever­ag­ing re­tail lo­ca­tions as cash pick­up points, we are bridg­ing a gap for cus­tomers who pre­fer or, in times of ur­gency, re­quire cash-based trans­ac­tions. This is

just the be­gin­ning— Wi­Pay’s goal is to ex­pand these ser­vices through­out the Caribbean by se­cur­ing ad­di­tion­al re­tail part­ner­ships with­in its reg­u­la­to­ry re­mits,” said Haynes.