Last week, I wrote about how people in Trinidad and Tobago can convert TTD into foreign currency and gain greater access to the international financial system.
Since that article was published, I have been flooded with another question.
What about the reverse?
How can someone in T&T receive money from family, friends, employers or clients abroad and either maintain access to those funds internationally or bring the money into their local bank account?
If you followed my previous guides and already established your Wam and Sendana accounts, you now have two very useful ways to accomplish this without relying solely on traditional remittance services.
Option 1: Use PayPal as the bridge
The first setup involves PayPal.
Both Wam and Sendana provide US banking details that can be connected to PayPal. This creates a useful bridge between money received through PayPal and the wider financial infrastructure you are building.
For example, a family member, employer or international client can send money to your PayPal account. Once the funds arrive, you can decide where you want the money to go based on what you ultimately want to do with it.
Sendana becomes particularly useful when your objective is maintaining access to your USD internationally instead of immediately bringing everything into your Trinidad bank account.
You can withdraw your PayPal funds using the US banking details provided by Sendana. Sendana already provides users with a virtual card, and on Friday, August 21, the company announced its new physical Visa debit card.
That significantly increases the usefulness of the account.
If you already have Sendana, you can now apply for the physical card. Once you have access to your funds through Sendana, the card gives you the ability to spend wherever Visa is accepted and access cash through compatible ATMs.
For people who earn internationally, travel frequently or simply do not want every US dollar they receive immediately brought back into the Trinidad banking system, this provides considerably more flexibility.
Wam provides another route for your PayPal funds.
You can connect the US banking details provided by Wam to PayPal and withdraw your funds to your USD account in Wam. From there, you can convert the USD into TTD and then send the TTD to your local Trinidad and Tobago bank account.
This is particularly useful when the money you receive abroad is ultimately needed for expenses at home.
Remember that Wam’s conversion rates fluctuate. You are shown the applicable exchange rate at the time of conversion, so always review the rate and final amount before confirming the transaction.
The choice between Wam and Sendana therefore depends largely on what you want to accomplish with the money.
Sendana gives you a convenient route for maintaining international access to your funds and spending through its cards. Wam provides the route for receiving foreign currency, converting it into TTD and ultimately moving that money into your local bank account.
Option 2: Receive international transfers directly
The second method allows you to bypass PayPal altogether.
Wam provides users with banking details for three major currencies: US dollars, euros and British pounds.
For USD, you receive US banking information capable of receiving ACH and wire payments. For euros, you receive European banking details for receiving EUR. For British pounds, you receive UK banking details for receiving GBP.
This means you can give the appropriate account information directly to family members, friends, employers or clients abroad.
Someone in the United States can send money directly to your US account details. Someone in Europe can send euros to your European account. Someone in the UK can send pounds to your UK account.
Once the funds arrive in Wam, you can manage those foreign currency balances and, when necessary, convert the money into TTD and send it to your local Trinidad and Tobago bank account.
Sendana also provides US banking information that allows you to receive USD transfers from abroad.
Again, its strength is what you can do after receiving the money.
With Sendana’s virtual card and now its physical Visa debit card, you have the option of maintaining access to those funds internationally rather than automatically bringing everything into your local banking system.
You also do not necessarily have to choose between Wam and Sendana. They solve different problems and can work together as part of a wider financial setup.
Building your international financial infrastructure
This is the bigger lesson I want people to understand.
Caribbean citizens now have access to tools that allow us to build something resembling our own international financial infrastructure.
Consider the situations where this becomes useful.
You may have children studying abroad who need access to money. You may travel overseas for medical treatment. You may be a Trinidadian digital nomad living in another country. You may work remotely for an international company, have overseas clients or simply have family members abroad who regularly send money home.
Opening a traditional bank account as a foreigner can be relatively straightforward in some countries and extremely difficult in others.
Having Wam and Sendana already established gives you financial infrastructure that can travel with you and cover a wide variety of situations.
It also completely changes the experience of receiving money from abroad.
Instead of automatically thinking about MoneyGram or Western Union and physically visiting a location whenever someone sends money, these options allow you to manage the process digitally from the comfort of your home or virtually anywhere in the world.
You can receive money, maintain access to foreign currency, convert funds when necessary, move money into Trinidad and access funds through cards.
The previous conversation was about getting our TTD into the international financial system.
Now we need to understand how to make money flow efficiently in the opposite direction.
For Trinidad and Tobago citizens earning, travelling, studying and doing business in an increasingly global economy, Wam and Sendana are giving us some of the most useful tools we have had to build that infrastructure.
Keron Rose is a Caribbean digital strategist and digital nomad based in Thailand. He helps entrepreneurs build, monetise, and scale their digital presence while accessing global opportunities. Visit keronrose.com to learn more about the digital world.
