Fintech arm of the NCB Financial Group and wallet provider, The Future of business (TFOB) which trades as Lynk, partnering with MoneyGram, will today roll out its new and much-awaited remittance feature to market.

According to Vernon James, chief executive officer (CEO) of TFOB, his company in taking an aggressive approach to innovation, remains focused on giving users more options to pay with Lynk and to transfer money.

“Lynk is about making daily transactions and remittance is a transaction that happens tens of thousands of times daily. Through our partnership with MoneyGram, we are providing added convenience and functionality that users will find when they receive money from overseas with Lynk,” James said.

“We’re now the first wallet that persons overseas can send remittances directly to. All it requires is just for the sender to go into a MoneyGram outlet overseas, send the funds and with the reference number that is created from the transaction, the Lynk user here in Jamaica will be able to use the number to have the funds lodged directly in their wallet,” he explained, noting that funds could either be cashed out via the ABM or used to make purchases/payments digitally.

“We’ve started with MoneyGram but we expect to by the end of the year bring other remittance partner companies onboard — we remain in dialogue on this,” he further told the Jamaica Observer during an interview on Thursday ahead of an official launch event to be held at the Mandela Park in St Andrew today.

“The launch will introduce a new way to remittance across the island, presenting a real gamechanger for customers while removing the hassle of joining a line to receive cash and to pretty much iron-out traditional pain points,” he said.

He said that with the new feature, Lynk users will be able to claim their remittance safely and conveniently while being allowed the option to pay their bills with those funds, do top-ups, shop at over 5,000 businesses or to withdraw funds via any of its free cash out options.

In keeping with plans to unlock more features this year, the app outside of its digital wallet capabilities also supports ABM and other merchant platform services.

Launched in December 2021, Lynk to date has onboarded approximately 200,000 registered users, processing over $1.5 billion in transactions up to the end of last year.

“We have more users joining the platform daily therefore our expectation is that we will surpass $2 billion in transactions this year,” he also shared with the Caribbean Business Report.

Further speaking on the plans for this year, James said that the roll-out of a soon to be ready virtualised card (similar to a debit card) will enable Lynk users more options to pay in store and to shop online.

The CEO said that with the constant build-out of the technology, the intent is to offer to a wider cross-section of the unbanked and underserved populations, increased access to card-based and digital services.

“What we’re trying to do is to unlock the whole ecosystem and to allow people to spend wherever they choose. We have some things coming in terms of our merchant platform and we have more functionality coming for the general consumer in terms of allowing them to spend at more places,” he stated.