Neema, a new Israeli startup company, has launched the first financial institution catering to foreign laborers in Israel, on the grounds of Tel Aviv’s central bus station, an area where many migrant workers live. The Neema branch offers money transfers to foreign bank accounts for a flat fee of only 1%.
Foreign laborers are easy prey for banks and money changers. Each month they are required to transfer large sums of money to their families at home and the financial system takes advantage of them with high fees and unfavorable exchange rates adding up to the loss of a fortune each year.
The Neema system offers depositors important advantages: they can control the pace of transferring the funds to their family via a cellphone, giving them a measure of control over their family’s spending choices. The funds become available within 45 minutes of the transaction, payable to the family via 15,000 withdrawal stations.
The new startup has an enormous economic potential, as it is estimated that foreign workers in Israel transfer home in the neighborhood of $15 million a month, losing a significant portion to high fees and exchange rates. The global potential for the app is staggering, with an estimated 250 million registered foreign workers transferring tens of billions of dollars each month, all of whom are seeking low fees, favorable money conversions, easy access, and control over the funds being transferred.
Neema was founded by entrepreneur Barak Ben Ezer, who combines technology and money market experience, a veteran of the IDF Military Intelligence who worked as project manager for Microsoft’s mobile unit; and Assi Sivan, with a degree in economics from Columbia, a retail entrepreneur who founded a cosmetics and a restaurant chain in the US and Canada.