Beginning in mid-March, agents at Wave Money Transfer, Myanmar’s largest market share, began to struggle. Online money transfer services in Myanmar include OK Dollar, Wave Money is the most used by the basic people. After the political upheaval in Myanmar, remittances were not difficult in February, but they have been difficult since mid-March. This is because Wave Money no longer provides remittances to Wave money transfer operators. Wave Money employs a representative called a DDR in each township. From there, people take the agent license and work. If a sender is about to transfer money to someone in another township, the money is transferred through an agent. An agent in another township will reimburse the receiver according to the amount transferred. The transfer fee is only 1500 kyats per 100,000. To do so, agents have to withdraw the money from the relevant DDR. And DDR also has to withdraw from Wave Money. This is the operating level of Wave Money. This is a normal routine. The problem has been there since the money could not be withdrawn.
In mid-March, agents who have direct contact with customers arrange to make deposits and withdrawals between the customers, even they are not able to withdraw cash. But the crisis is not over. As time went on, the agent ran out of money. As a result, the money in the banks has to be withdrawn as a percentage. Percentage withdrawal is become popular in the remittance market. Wave Money company is connected with Yoma Bank. In the past, if Wave could not withdraw money, people could withdraw from the bank. Now it can no longer be withdrawn from the bank, so people have to withdraw a percentage of the money from the bank to run their business. That’s where the percentage market comes in. Percentage withdrawal varies from township to township. The minimum payment is 10% and currently it is up to 12%. Wave Money has announced that it will take action against agents who exchange percentages shortly after the market for percentages is introduced. Lack of normal banking services, unlimited mobile internet disconnection, limited internet services, Wave Money reports that internet instability and power outages have disrupted their operations and made it difficult for them to provide services to millions of customers.
It is learned that the big agents are facing various difficulties in providing Wave Money money transfer and withdrawal services. Most of them are facing shortage of banknotes and money transfer at Wave Money shops. Agents are facing an increase in the amount of cash withdrawal services. According to reports, some agents are charging higher fees, and Wave Money understands the difficulties faced by its agents in this situation, but they are not allowed to charge more than normal Wave Money service fees. Wave Money has announced that it will investigate cases of overpayment and will take appropriate action against customers in the event of such breaches or breaches of the code. Wave Money agents reacted to the announcement. They said that when a customer want to withdrawal money, they give the number which Wave Money has given to them. The main problem is the irresponsibility of Wave Money. There has also been criticism of Wave Money’s statement on social media. These things would not have happened if Wave had taken responsibility for the money in the account and exchanged it for cash.
It is understandable that Wave cannot take responsibility for itself due to the current situation. But people also see that accountability of Wave Money is lacking since they were just saying without any actual actions. But there are some agents who offer cashless withdrawals to keep the customers out of trouble. After the political upheaval, it became difficult to withdraw money from banks, and most people relied on remittance services such as Wave Money for easy money transfer. However, Wave agents say they have not yet been able to transfer money properly and have not returned to their original state. A money changer from Wave Money said that it was difficult to solve the problem for the basic people because it was not easy to transfer money. It’s easy for everyone to use, as long as they show them the incoming message and simply generate a password. Now, even if customers will pay the percentage, they still need to find the an agent. And they have to pay it since they need to have cash. For some people, they can buy rice with that money if they do not need to pay a percentage. At present, some Wave agents charge a percentage of the money in the bank to get the money out of the bank and then withdraw the money from the cashier. No one can say when that will end.
Source: Daily Eleven