Dubai: UAE’s current $15 billion (Dh55 billion) remittances is likely to see strong growth in coming years, industry experts told a conference on Monday.

UAE remits about $30 billion to overseas countries, out of which $12-15 billion gets remitted to India.

“Rising population and increasing affluence of personal finance transactions, the epayments and smart phone payments are expected to increase by 70 per cent by 2020,” said Adeeb Ahamed, chief executive of Lulu Financial Group at the UAE India Economic Forum.

In UAE, the government is working on various formats to introduce the digital signatures etc as a move towards innovating the mode of making payments.

“Technology is a disruptive force. The expansion of mobile money or online payment eco-system would better help service consumers and help unbanked users,” he said, adding India and the UAE can exploit the penetration of mobile in both the countries.

UAE is the cheapest remittance provider in terms of costs worldwide compared to other countries, Ahamed said the cost can be further lowered by using technology.

“Every industry is evolving on technological grounds, and the remittance industry is also bound to see the way it is functioning currently,” Ahamed said.

The cost stands at around 10 per cent worldwide, while the costs in UAE was at 3 per cent, considered cheapest in the world.

“We are looking to bring more efficiency on costs,” Ahamed added.

The majority of the cost which is borne by the exchange house is the cost of remittance which they pay the financial institutions worldwide, and the second important cost is the real estate, where they have to take the prime locations.

“By relying on technology, the human and real estate cost could be brought down considerably,” he added.

On a broader level, India’s historic ties with the UAE were significantly enhanced with the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the country in August of this year and this was followed by the setting up of a joint business council (JBC) in September.

UAE has an important place in India’s energy security as the sixth largest import-source of crude oil in 2014-15. Bilateral trade has grown significantly from a level of $180 million in the 1970s to around $60 billion per annum now, making the UAE India’s third-largest trading partner for 2014-15.