The news came this past weekend. Our friend and colleague Emilio Garofalo Filho has passed away. My friend and IMTC Advisory Board Member Daniel Trias told me the sad news. Daniel was shaken. He had just had lunch with Emilio two weeks ago where they both discussed IMTC BRASIL 2016, the Conference to take place…
The organizing committee, in its first public announcement, stated: “The MSBA is a trade association focused on the non-bank money services industry, including licensed money transmitters and their agents/authorized delegates, payment card issuers and distributors, payment processors, international remittance companies, bill payment companies, mobile payment application providers, payment aggregators, virtual currency exchanges and administrators, eWallet providers…
The Money Transmitters Regulators Association will hold its 25th Annual Conference in October 6-9 in Kansas City Missouri. This conference is mainly attended by regulators from all the states that license Non-Bank Financial Institutions that are required to obtain a license to offer their services to customers in their state. The Money transmitter industry is also present…
The Global Forum on Remittances and Development 2015 (GFRD2015) hosted by IFAD’s Financing Facility for Remittances is on the way today, Tuesday, June 16 in Milano, Italy at the Stella Polare Convention Centre, another of the activities of the year long Universal Exposition EXPO2015: Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life. IMTC is present at the Forum…
Faisal Khan, a Banking, Payments & Fintech Consultant in Dubai has compiled an impressive list of everything related to Money Transfers that he has collected graphically in a Periodic Table of Remittances. The impressive list of around 160 items has been divided in categories such as Comparison Sites, Influential Regulators,Platforms, Emerging Players, Incumbent Players, Payment Networks, Niche Players, Data Sources, People, Software, Airtime Transfers, Conferences, Forums, Blogs…
IMTC EMEA 2015 ended last week with more than 160 participants beating all our expectations. We are very thankful with our great sponsors and the speakers who delivered very interesting presentations – downloads available from our IMTC site, and and shared their knowledge and opinions in the panels in our plenaries. We thank also the great…
The news gained momentum on May 5th when Bloomberg reported that WU was in talks with MGI. Immediately MGI shares shoot up almost 40% and WU shares also went up slightly. My phone started ringing with investment advisor asking for my opinion. I had little to say, really. But the following day…
Remittances of Lebanese expatriates increased from USD $7.86B in 2013 to $8.9B in 2014, up 13.2%. The World Bank attributed the increase in remittances in part to those sent to Syrian refugees in Lebanon by their relatives abroad. Although the data for outflows from the country has only been published until June 2014, in 2013 it reached a level very close to 5 Billion USD (same level in 2009, maximum ever recorded).
Turkey, which for years was a large recipient of remittances (5 Billion in 1998) has seen a significant market change with a vibrant sending market that might reach USD $0.5 Billion in 2015 while the inflow that started declining in the year 2000 has dropped to less than USD $1 Billion two years in a row.
Just two weeks after the end of our IMTC USA 2015 Conference in Las Vegas, where we had a great panel on Bank Discontinuance entitled “Financial Access for the Money Transfer Industry – One step forward, two steps back? brilliantly moderated by Connie Fenchel with panelists Deborah Thoren-Peden from Pillsbury Law and Thomas Fleming from TF & Associates, the Republican leaders on the US House Financial Services Committee sent letters to the federal financial regulatory agencies asking to publicly disavow their “past, present, and future involvement in Operation Choke Point or any similar operation”. You can read the OCC letter here: http://bit.ly/1aP00Nu.
As part of our presentation on the Somalian Remittance Crisis at IMTC USA 2015 & IMTC EMEA 2015, here are some key aspects that you should know about Somalia, the Somali Diaspora and Somalian Remittances.
Andy Peters, the writer behind great articles at The American Banker, wrote an article entitled “Money Transfer Business Is on the Rise — Time to Get Out” that is worth reading and serves as a preview of our sessions on Bank Discontinuance at IMTC USA 2015. Is it really time to get out? Or is it the time to get in!
As part of our presentation on the Somalian Remittance Crisis at IMTC USA 2015, here are some key aspects that you should know about Somalia, the Somali Diaspora and Somalian Remittances.
On De-Risking, Recent Bank Account Closures, The Somalian Remittance Crisis and the loud calls to try to resolve the MSB Bank Discontinuance crisis in the US (and UK, Australia… and almost everywhere) In English, a “moving target” is when you set your expectation for something – some task, some desirable outcome, a target, and then when it…
DEVELOPING PARTNERSHIPS WITH US LICENSED MONEY TRANSMITTERS
Inspired by Judie Rinearson’s article Surprise: State Licensing Laws Could Help Payments Innovation – http://bit.ly/1yd0FLW
We all know that technology and the creativity surrounding the tech revolution is inspiring a vast number of payment innovations. Online financial services, mobile payments, eWallets, bitcoin & the virtual currencies explosion, smarter ATMs, tools such as contactless chips, beacons, geo-location, are seeking to make payments more inclusive, easier to use, to track and to market, safer, faster, more efficient, more tailored to every user, etc.
Right at 9 am, in the Cash Room of the Treasury Building last Tuesday, January 13th,, 100+ attendees gathered to participate in the Roundtable.
As I did for 2013, I have put together the 10 most important news stories for the Money Transfer Industry in 2014, as a way to reflect back and at the same time analyze the trends for the coming year. They are not necessarily in order of importance. They are based on my personal opinions and ideas from friends and colleagues in the industry.
If you want to read it from a PDF, view it | download it from here
If I miss something of importance or if you have any type of comment, please do it in LinkedIn. We would love to hear you opinion. Please go to our Linkedin Group following this link: http://linkd.in/WiQVFa and it will take you directly to the discussion.
Hugo Cuevas-Mohr
