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A NEW service is touting itself to the Indian community here as the fastest way to remit funds back home, with the largest network of locations in India.
The State Bank of India (SBI) on Sunday launched an 'instant transfer' facility for rupee remittances from Singapore to India.
The bank says it has a network of nearly 10,000 branches, made up of branches in the SBI group.
These include SBI's almost 6,000 branches as well as all the branches of its seven associate banks in India.
The new service was formally inaugurated by the Indian High Commissioner to Singapore S. Jaishankar on Sunday at SBI's Rangoon Road remittance centre.
Currently, remittance services offered by banks in Singapore take between 15 minutes and a few working days to complete.
The new instant transfer service will appeal to the 375,000 or so Indian expats in Singapore.
These include those working in the burgeoning construction sector, which employs a large number of foreign workers, said Mrs Anshula Kant, chief executive of SBI Singapore.
Indian workers typically remit $500 to $1,000 each per month back to India, while professionals working in the information technology, finance and other sectors here tend to remit larger amounts of about $2,000 to $3,000 every few months, said a SBI spokesman.
With more than 14,000 branches, the SBI group is India's largest in terms of network, assets and profits.
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