Expats standing in queue at an exchange house to send money to relatives back home.
As Eid Al Fitr is around the corner, several exchange houses in Doha are experiencing a huge rush. The number of customers has increased by 12 percent due to upcoming Eid Al Fitr holidays.
Long queues of customers waiting to process their transactions can be seen at different exchange houses.
The services that are witnessing a high demand include money transfers and currency exchanges.
Talking to The Peninsula, an official from Al Zaman Exchange House, said: “As every year, this year also we are experiencing huge crowd at our exchange house.
Remittances have increased by 10-12 percent during past three days. Egypt, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka are the main destinations that are likely to see major remittances.”
“Currencies of most of the countries which receive major remittances from Qatar have largely remained stable in the past two months. Indian rupee is trading around 17.65 per Qatari riyal, Egyptian pound is trading around 4.89 per riyal. Pakistani rupee is at around 28.75, Sri Lankan rupee at 41.90 and Bangladeshi taka is trading around 22.16 per Qatari riyal,” he further added.
In addition to the requirements for the Eid holidays, many residents are preparing to travel abroad in the days ahead. Besides, it has been learnt that many companies will pay the salaries of their employees earlier than usual to help them transfer money to their families in home countries or meet other expenses.
“I have a small family in Egypt, two daughters and a wife. I am here to send them money to buy Eid clothes and do preparations of Eid before I arrive there. Sometimes I go earlier, as this year I am going right one day before Eid, I am sending them money earlier,” said an Egyptian expat at Western Union Exchange located in Al Wakra.
Asian countries such as India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Nepal were among the top recipients of money transfers. As for Arab countries, transfers to Egypt were the highest followed by Jordan, Tunisia and Morocco.
