Hana Bank announced that it has launched the Hana-Western Union Remittance Service under an agreement with Western Union, a well-known U.S remittance company.

All customers have to do to remit funds overseas is to visit the bank’s outlets, open an account, and request how they want the funds to be remitted, which is very useful to families who have children studying abroad or those who have to remit funds overseas often.

The remittances can be made in two ways. First, a monthly remittance date can be designated along with the minimum amount to be remitted from the customers’ accounts. The customers have only to deposit money in their accounts and the bank will remit the amount designated from the customers accounts automatically on every requested dates. The amount of money to be remitted on designated dates should be from $50 to $5,000 at a time. 

The bank charges a fee of between $10 and $20. Customers who use the service will be notified that their remittance was received via SNS messages and they can cash the remittances in as little as 30 minutes with no need for the receiver to go to the bank.

Officials of Hana Bank said the bank will find what customers of remittances want and try to make the remittances easier for such customers as foreign workers or those who are not familiar with dealing with banks by developing products and services tailor-made for them.

Hana Bank also said on April 3 that it has launched an overseas remittance service called “Hana Global Pay,” which can be made via the internet, smartphone banking, and mobile electronic wallet (Hana N). Domestic customers of Hana Bank can remit money from their Paypal account into their bank account in real time.

Any Hana Bank customer can remit as much as $1,000 at the minimum and $10,000 per year at the maximum to their Paypal accounts in 190 countries in a simple and convenient way. The bank will charge 1 percent of the remitted amount and a minimum of $1, a steep reduction from the usual fees for overseas fund remittances.

Paypal is an affiliate of eBay Inc., which jointly launched the Hana Global Pay service from April last year and provides the remittance service in 25 foreign currencies to individuals and businesses in 190 countries through online and mobile remittance services and has grown to be a representative global online remittance service.

A Hana Bank official said, “The Hana Global Pay service provides fast, convenient remittance services at low fees, truly a revolutionary means of overseas remittance unique among the general means of overseas remittance services.”

Any domestic customer can remit money to their friends or relatives and students going to school overseas, while foreign residents in Korea can remit money overseas through the Hana Global Pay remittance service facility.

Hana Bank has been operating a number of its branches or outlets for foreign customers:

The Wokok-dong Outlet of the Ansan Branch from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Its staff can converse in Chinese and Vietnamese.

The Eulji-ro Branch in No. 6 Euljiro, Seoul from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and the second and fourth Sundays from 12 a.m. to 5 p.m. with the staff speaking Mongolian.

Other remittance services operated by the bank includes:

Asia Priority Financial Products and Services: The customers, especially foreign customers can only register and the branch will take care of the remittances from CD and ATM accounts. The staff can speak many foreign languages including English, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Chinese, Tagalog, Cambodian, Uzbek, Thai, Bengali, among others.

Western Union Rapid Remittance Service:

Western Union, with its outlets all over the world, can remit funds rapidly to anywhere. The customers who get the remittances don’t need bank accounts and it takes only 30 minutes to remit the money.

Western Union Automatic Remittance:

Western Union uses its outlets all over the world to remit money. Customers can register the bank accounts of the receivers of the remittances and the remittances will be automatically made to the bank accounts in only 30 minutes.