ECONOMIC slowdown notwithstanding, iREMIT Inc., the largest Filipino-owned nonbank remittance company, said the volume of fund transfers from January to July this year jumped 56 percent to $630 million.

This rate outpaced that of the industry average that grew by only 18.2 percent to $9.6 billion during the seven-month period.

“The demand for the remittance and fulfillment services we offer is steadily increasing,” said iRemit president and chief operating officer Harris Jacildo.

And to keep up with the demand, he said the company is focusing efforts on forging strategic partnerships and alliances, both here and abroad.

The company recently signed a deal with Maybank (Philippines), where their branches will serve as additional payout centers for remittances.  

“So far, we now have 3,635 remittance pickup centers nationwide and 610 outlets across the globe, thus, reinforcing our strong position in this growing market,” he said.

The company said it was investing P800 million to expand into new markets abroad, including the US, Western Europe and Saudi Arabia.

Chairman Bansan Choa said the investments would be funded by the company’s internally generated funds.

iRemit, which became a publicly owned company last year, allotted about P400 million of the proceeds from the initial public offering to set up operations in Austria, Australia, Hong Kong and partnerships in Marshall Islands, Brunei, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Jordan, Qatar and Malaysia. The company has operations in 25 countries and territories with Canada, Australia, UAE and Singapore as top contributors.

While there is a global economic slowdown driven largely by the financial crisis in the US, iRemit continues to see pockets of opportunity all over the world where demand for Filipino workers remains unabated.

This year, remittances from overseas Filipino worker (OFW) are expected to reach P16.4 billion from P14 billion in 2007. Jacildo sees the company accounting for 8 percent of the total OFW transmittals this year.

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