KATHMANDU: Hamro Patro, the most popular app in Nepal, has launched remittance service targeting Nepalis abroad from Friday.

The app that has been providing multiple services has also added remittance service, enabling Nepalis abroad to send money to Nepal from their fingertips.

Hamro Patro’s remittance service came into operation on Friday.

For the time being, Nepalis currently in the United States are able to transfer money from their U.S. bank accounts or debit cards directly to any bank account in Nepal, said Shankar Upreti, the founder of HamroPatro. “Our remittance service began from 12 noon Friday,” he said.

This remittance feature has been added with new updates in both Hamro Parto’s iOS and Android apps.

Upreti said the remittance service, currently only available for Nepalis in U.S., would be expanded to other countries, including Japan, South Korea and Australia.

“Our overhead (cost of manpower) is very low as users can send money themselves through Hamro Patro,” he said, adding, “This has made possible to send remittances to Nepal from abroad at a minimal service charge.”

The company claims that its services are much cheaper than the remittance services currently available in the market.

With the launch of the remittance service, the company has also announced a special offer to attract users. Accordingly, on the occasion of Dashain and Tihar, sending remittances to Nepal via Hamro Patro app will be for free for the first three transfers.

Stating that the amount transferred would take two to three working days to be deposited in the account of Nepali banks for the time being, the company is preparing to introduce instant transfer within a month.

Hamro Patra started as a calendar app and has been providing the facility to view the Nepali exchange rate of Forex, i.e. foreign currency, since its beginning. Now users can view exchange rates and send remittances from the same app.

The company believes that Hamro Patro’s remittance service would be the easiest option for users to send money to Nepal from abroad.

The company stated that it collaborated with the license holders of the respective countries for remittance services.

The app can be updated or even downloaded from Google Play Store for android users and iOS Play Store for apple users. Users can also avail the remittance service from Hamro Parto’s website.