The global immigrant population is growing at a healthy pace. Their collective strength is one to be reckoned with. In 2019, migrants collectively sent $550.5 billion in money back to their home countries—money transfer flows that are more popularly known as remittances.
Remittances serve as an economic lifeline around the world, particularly for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The visualization linked to this post relies on the latest data from the World Bank to create a snapshot of these global remittance flows.
Where do most of these remittances come from, and which countries are the biggest recipients?
Through a single connection to the MasterCard Send platform, businesses, merchants, governments, non-profits, issuers and other senders can send money to consumers whether they are banked or unbanked, and located domestically or abroad. By digitizing personal payments that are typically handled via cash or check, MasterCard is providing greater convenience, choice and security to both payment senders and receivers in developed and developing markets.
From Mobile Payments Today –
“Earlier this year, the Federal Reserve issued a plan for collaborating with payment industry stakeholders to find a way to enhance the speed, safety and efficiency of what has become an outdated and inefficient system.
One of the Fed's desired outcomes is to improve the speed by which payments clear, particularly those that involve the ACH Network. Though the industry is still a few years from solving that problem, MasterCard Tuesday introduced a system that enables various payment industry stakeholders, including merchants, to sidestep ACH and use the established debit card networks to send funds to consumers in about the time it takes to complete an ATM transaction.
MasterCard Send is being touted as a first-of-its-kind service to enable businesses, merchants, governments, nonprofits and issuers to transfer funds to consumers' checking accounts via any U.S. debit card, including non-MasterCard debit cards.
Send is now live in the U.S., but MasterCard plans to expand it overseas to enable the aforementioned entities to transfer funds into mobile money accounts and cash agent outlets in addition to debit cards.’
“The tightening of international banking standards is making it difficult for low-income people in the global south to get access to banking services.
When people in developing countries don’t have access to a bank account, physical proximity to a bank is usually the first challenge that springs to mind, but sometimes the reason a person is unable to access a secure place to store their savings is as simple as them not having a piece of paper to prove who they are.
Banking regulations vary between countries, and some allow banks to set their own rules about what proof of identity they accept for new customers to make sure no one is excluded. In South Africa Standard Bank accepts a letter verifying a person’s address from a tribal chief for certain accounts, while Postbank offers a Mzansi account, which does not require any proof of address but only offers basic transactional services and has a balance limit of 25,000 South African Rand (£1,362).”
“Bitcoin startup Beam, headquartered in Ghana’s capital Accra has created a product that will enable the Nigerian, and Ghanaian diaspora communities in the UK remit money home instantly and affordably. Each year the close to 100,000 Ghanaians in the UK send about US$ 23 million homeward. Nigerians in the UK who number close to half a million send US$ 3.8 billion home.
According to a report commissioned by Citizens International and published by the United States Agency for International Development, the main reasons for sending money home is to take care of basic needs such as food, shelter and clothing for a parent.”
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