The 10 Most Important Issues – 2015 Edition – 8

Hugo Cuevas-Mohr puts together every year the 10 Most important Issues for the industry. To download the PDF go to Download/IMTC Publications.

The continued decline in the price of oil is affecting remittances worldwide, although the effects are varied, depending on the region of the world. But even if oil prices fell to their lowest levels in a decade, remittance outflows from the GCC were not heavily impacted during 2015. Remittances to Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen, with over 70% coming from the GCC, were not affected.

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The 10 Most Important Issues – 2015 Edition – 7

Hugo Cuevas-Mohr puts together every year the 10 Most important Issues for the industry. To download the PDF go to Download/IMTC Publications.

It was a good year for Mergers & Acquisitions (M&As) in the IMTC&P Industry, with the most notable news coming from the U.S: The July, 2015, $890M deal for the purchase of XOOM by PayPal. You can google hundreds of news articles on PayPal’s acquisition of Xoom or read the SEC merger report.

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The 10 Most Important Issues – 2015 Edition – 6

Hugo Cuevas-Mohr puts together every year the 10 Most important Issues for the industry. To download the PDF go to Download/IMTC Publications.

The digital race heats up in the U.S. with the entrance of World Remit and TransferWise into the U.S. market, while Western Union opens up online channels in Europe. SaveOnSend articles, written by Alexey Artamonov and his multinational team, are probably one of the best sources to explore the rise of TransferWise and its initial strategy in Europe.

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The 10 Most Important Issues – 2015 Edition – 5

Hugo Cuevas-Mohr puts together every year the 10 Most important Issues for the industry. To download the PDF go to Download/IMTC Publications.

Digital IMT&Ps are continuing to increase their market share as investors and bankers favor online/mobile channels. At IMTC WORLD 2015’s M&A roundtables, the message was clear: Investors and bankers are favoring digital channels, overwhelmingly, and not only is the valuation of digital money transfer companies very high, but there is very small interest in the investment world for investing in traditional agent-based MTOs.

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The 10 Most Important Issues – 2015 Edition – 4

Hugo Cuevas-Mohr puts together every year the 10 Most important Issues for the industry. To download the PDF go to Download/IMTC Publications.

Mobile Money Services continue to expand across the developing world with new cross-border functionalities, systems integrations, partnerships, and regulatory advances for the industry. Domestic use of mobile transfer services spreads. The Global Mobile Systems Association (GMSA) reports that mobile money industry continues to expand globally, with more than 250 live mobile money services in nearly 90 countries.

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The 10 Most Important Issues – 2015 Edition – 3

Hugo Cuevas-Mohr puts together every year the 10 Most important Issues for the industry. To download the PDF go to Download/IMTC Publications.

Price to the public of industry services have been fairly stable during the year. MTOs interviewed have seen a slight upward trend even though they state that competition in every channel is fierce, more so in the exchange spread than in the fees. According to Remittance Prices Worldwide (RPW), the global average cost of sending remittances (including all fees and charges) remained basically the same in 2015 with a slight downward trend. RPW reports that the global average was 7.72% in 1Q, 7.68% in 2Q,  7.52% in 3Q and 7.37% in 4Q – a change of – 0.35% for the year).

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The 10 Most Important Issues – 2015 Edition – 2

Hugo Cuevas-Mohr puts together every year the 10 Most important Issues for the industry. To download the PDF go to Download/IMTC Publications.

Bank discontinuance and de-risking of MSBs/MTOs/money transmitters is still a major global problem industry-wide, but we think there has been a slight shift in the discussion with reports, regulations, and statements being published that gives us a sense of the issue moving forward; the small positive steps might seem irrelevant to a number of companies caught with limited or no banking relationships.

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The 10 Most Important Issues – 2015 Edition – 1

Hugo Cuevas-Mohr puts together every year the 10 Most important Issues for the industry. To download the PDF go to Download/IMTC Publications.

Although the volume of International Money Transfer & Payments (IMT&Ps) continues to increase, the percentage increase YTY has slowed down. According to the World Bank and Knomad, in their latest Brief #25, the growth rate of remittances to developing countries is projected to fall from 3.3% in 2014 to 2% in 2015 (down from 7% in 2010-2013). The slower growth rate is not uniform at all since the sharp decrease in remittances from Russia and slower growth in the Middle East significantly affected the global average.

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In Memoriam – Emilio Garofalo Filho

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…

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