How to make international pension payments more convenient for your beneficiaries

Pension companies that still send cross-border payments by bank cheque, must do more to satisfy their customers with faster, more convenient services. Here’s what you need to know in order to maintain customer satisfaction.

Sending international payments to customers living in remote or rural areas is a challenge that many companies face, especially pension payment institutions. With the increase in the number of people working in their non-native country, the number of people receiving pension payments from abroad has also been steadily increasing.

If the recipients are unbanked or live in rural areas, where the nearest bank branch is located kilometres away, traditional remittances become a major hurdle. The accessibility limitations due to poor infrastructure and connectivity, combined with limited opening hours can significantly delay payment disbursements.

While bank transfers are a popular choice for pension companies and other financial institutions to send cross-border payments, many still rely on the slow and unreliable international bank cheque. In the UK, it takes 4-7 weeks on average for foreign cheque to clear and many banks use an outdated correspondent system which is slow and inefficient.

Cashing out an international cheque also comes with high transaction fees for the beneficiary. For example, Lloyds Bank charges between 15 to 80GBP per international cheque transaction. HSBC UK charges from 6 to 60GBP to credit a foreign cheque, plus the fees charged by the correspondent bank. If the cheque is returned unpaid, an extra fee of 25GBP will be discounted from the payment.

The challenge of finding a Payment Service Provider (PSP) for international cash payouts

With the limitations in bank cheques, companies are looking for alternative options to serve their international customers. Finding a fast, secure, and low-cost solution is a rather demanding task. The high number of PSP providers makes the environment complex to navigate and difficult to identify how to meet your specific customer needs, especially if you require cross-border cash payouts.

Pension providers, for example, offer a service where timing is crucial. Beneficiaries can be highly dependent on receiving the funds to cover basic needs and waiting many weeks will severely affect them.

A network of trusted and local payout institutions is the solution to ensure fast international transactions and a smooth experience for the end-user. But how to use the local payment infrastructure while ensuring the fast delivery of international payouts?

Reach your cross-border recipients quickly and conveniently with PostalCheque

Inpay has created a solution that solves payment speed and security issues while reaching underbanked and unbanked customers living in rural or remote areas. With PostalCheque, you can make low-cost cross-border cash payments to a trusted network of postal organizations across the world. PostalCheque is like a postal money order and is suitable for pension, insurance, and other recurring cash payouts.

What are the benefits of a postal money order?

Via a single agreement and integration, PostalCheque gives you access to 28 payout countries in multiple convenient postal office locations.

PostalCheque makes recieving international cash payments faster and more convenient for your customers. It delivers your payouts closer to your customers’ residence – within 1-2 business days. PostalCheque is almost as fast as receiving a local payment. It cuts through the inefficacy of bank cheques that can take weeks to be mailed and cashed out by the recipient’s bank.

Make mass cash payments for a low-cost and avoid correspondent banking fees and excessive FX deductions – a cheaper and faster alternative to bank cheques and swift-to-cheque transfers.  A flat fee is pre-agreed with our sales team based on payment volume – the higher the volume the lower the cost.

No fees will be deducted at the payment destination after FX conversion from the postal operator. The beneficiary receives the payment in full, in the local currency.

PostalCheque is delivered locally, meaning it won’t get lost in the international mailing system, reducing the number of costly, support cases. With PostalCheque, a dedicated customer service team will be available to handle your queries network-wide. You get a single point of access for clearing, settlement, and customer service. The entire process is transparent with payment status traceable through our customer web portal.

PostalCheque is a secure payout method. It is issued by regulated and established postal institutions, which are trusted by the local population. Our KYC processes deter fraud as the identity of the recipient is verified physically, at payment collection.