Are you a small licensed money transfer operator? Are you struggling for business and thinking the end is near. Well, I want you to take some time out and think along these 12 Questions I have for you.
Go through this video and then see if the description and the circumstances fit you. If they do, let’s talk.
Transcript:
Hello. My name is Faisal Khan. I am a banking and a payment consultant.
A couple of years ago, I put out a presentation on 12 Questions That Every money transfer operator should be asking themselves. I’ve decided to do a small video on it because not many people have the time to go and find the actual presentation and download it and then see it. So I thought I’d take time out, read the 12 questions out to you, and then maybe it gives you… you can take a pause and you can think about where you as a money transfer operator or someone that has money transmitter licenses or someone who is a small remittance service provider – can think where they are today, where they want to go, how will they get there etc. Please forgive me I’m going to read it off the computer so I will be looking at it now every now and then for the questions.
The main concern today is that the you know the Denovo players like TransferWise, Xoom, Remitly, World First etc. Those with an online presence are gaining major market share, are offering banking services, are offering products etc. and the traditional money transfer exchange company or you know a money transfer business is feeling the heat. They are really really seeing that squeeze come in, businesses is going down, competition is high, times are tough. Margins have gone down. Access to banking is being lost etc. So I thought about that and I said okay what can we do. How can you leverage all the players out there you know make it work so well the obvious answer is you know there is something called the uberization of money transport where you take in – just like what Uber did with individual drivers and made a business out of it – we take individual money services operators and you know leverage and lift them all up. So in no order of preference I will say some…I will go to the questions as I said. I ask for your forgiveness because I will be looking at the computer and asking them.
Question number one is: how up to par with the competition is your online presence?
You probably know who your competition is, if they’re here where are you? Are you here, down below, are you up there or are you not in the scene at all? Question to ask yourself.
Question number two: How strong is your social media presence. The competition certainly has a very good social media presence. How good is yours. Are you interacting. Do you have many followers. Is there interaction, are you propagating your messages on a timely manner. When the occasions arise Christmas, Ramadan, Diwali etc etc. Are you interacting with your customers? Are You picking up customers from social media or not? So how strong is your presence. Those are the kind of questions you need to be asking.
So question number three how much money are you spending online in advertising to solicit new clients. There are there were many reports and you can download them, you know, the average cost of acquisition for a TransferWise client is 55 dollars or seventy five dollars. How much are you spending to actually acquire one single plan. Have we done that math. Do you have an affiliate program. Are you paying someone else to bring you one client and they sign up, you will give them 20 dollars or 30 dollars or 50 dollars. Do you even know of such programs and how to even work with them. So how much are you spending to solicit clients?
Question number four: how much money are you spending on the front end and back end technology of your ITA systems. That’s the question number four, and I’m sure I don’t have to explain it, but you can go into depths of understanding how UI and UX on the front end as improved and how on the back end various connects have come into ACH, card processors, AML, compliance, money laundering, transaction management systems that you can interact with how good the software has become and how much have you invested in those arenas.
How many beneficiary countries do you have access to? This is question number five. How many beneficiaries countries do you have access to directly and how many do you have with respect to aggregators?
Another question that you need to ponder upon. How many new U.S. states are you considering applying for money transmitter licenses? If you think that there is a business and you know you say hey you know I’m in Florida, and it would be nice to have Georgia. Have you thought about applying? Are you going to apply? When will that happen. So you need to think about that question.
Question number seven. Have you done any studies on how many more clients can you get if you were licensed in other states?
Question number eight is the ability to expand restricted by capital. And if so, how much? And if you did get more capital, how much would you expand? Do you have a plan for that even?
Question number nine. Do you have the capital and resources and not to mention the time to add new products, to make new products and services? Have you.. Do you even have the time for it? Do you have the money for it? Have you got the manpower for it? Have you got the ability to execute it?
Question number 10. How much business are you slowly losing to the new online players, who are very tech savvy customers one by one? There’s no doubt about it, that you know the denovo players who have entered the market are taking share of your, off your buy. And if you say, that well no, no, no, doesn’t affect me, well then I think you will need to stop drinking your own koolaid and get a reality check, because they are taking customers off from you. How many customers would it take before you go from the black into the red before you go from profitability to mega losses before you, before you go into, let’s say shutting down your business and going out of business. How many clients is that? Have you thought about that.?
Question Number 11. Who Is looking out for you? Planning A strategy for your success? Not last before your success. Who is helping you out? Is your banker coming to you? Is your software provider coming to you? Is your customer coming to you, and saying ‘Hey, I want to help you out. I want to help you make succeed this business because you’ve been in for a long time.’ Who is helping you do that pragmatically speaking?
And the last question is ‘how long before you go out of business?’ It is a tough one. It is just one that stings. Yes, but it is a question you have to ask yourself. Have you given it a thought? What will you do when you can no longer stay in business? I know, I personally know companies have done nothing, this money transmission for three generations and that’s it. And they went out of business because of derisking, and now they don’t know how to do anything else and they’re struggling. What will you do if you go out of business?
You know these are the twelve questions. Like I said I want you to think about and if you feel that you need to get on a call with me, schedule a call. Details are down below, schedule one. I’d be happy to speak to you. Let me end it on a positive note. There is hope. There is a lot of hope. We just don’t know it but I’m very glad we found this video. Till next time, have a good one.
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This page was last updated on September 1, 2022.
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