Indian expats in UAE rush to send money home

A rapidly falling rupee has sent hundreds of Indian expatriates in the Emirates to the nearest remittance centres to make the most of the fabulous conversion rates.

The Indian rupee slumped to a record low of Rs15.40 against the UAE dirham (Rs56.57 against $1) on Thursday due to increased demand for the US dollar by oil importers and capital outflows from the Indian equity markets.

Currency exchanges centres across the UAE saw a large number of Indian expats queuing up to send money home.

“Today we saw an increase in the number of people remitting money back home. Interestingly, most of them were sending huge amounts, obviously cashing in on the opportunity,” Promod Manghat, Vice President, Operations, UAE Exchange told Yahoo! Maktoob.

UAE Exchange has 113 branches in the UAE.

“Expatriates tend to borrow big amounts from banks and wait for better-than-ever exchange rates to remit them,” Manghat added.

UAE banks have also decided to join the party by starting personal loan campaigns. Leading banks including Dubai Islamic Bank and National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) are offering personal loans.

However, loan eligibility is based on an applicant's total income, financial liabilities and debt serving capacity.

This is the fourth consecutive day of drop in the value of the Indian rupee.

The value of the Indian currency has declined sharply since Fitch cut its outlook on India's sovereign ratings this week to ‘negative’ from ‘stable’, nearly two months after rival Standard & Poors made a similar call.