Equity Bank, once technically declared insolvent in 1993, now has more than 9 million customers, more than any other bank in Africa with nearly half of the bank accounts in Kenya. The company’s vision is “to be the champion of the socio-economic prosperity of the people of Africa,” with an agent-based model that has won…
Update on the Remittance Community Task Force – RCTF: The Private Sector – As you should know by now, especially if you read our first article on the Remittance Community Task Force (RCTF), this is an initiative created by IFAD from a UN mandate, to get all the stakeholders in the money transfer sector to bring…
The March 19 announcement by the United Nations Secretary General, Mr. Antonio Guterres, has called for global solidarity in response to the coronavirus crisis. In response to this dire scenario, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), through its Financing Facility for Remittances (FFR) is convening the Remittance Community Task Force to address the challenges…
Coinciding with the celebration of the 10 year anniversary of IMTC conferences we are faced with one of the most exciting and challenging organizational shifts: The Platinum Network (PNET). Bringing these conferences to life over the past 10 years implied a lot of work in the sense that it took time, energy, and creativity and…
LaBITconf, the Latin American Bitcoin and Blockchain conference is probably one of the conferences that I enjoy the most every year. And this time, in its 7th edition in Montevideo, Dec 12-14, it was quite an event again. LaBITconf is so full of life, creativity, originality, where you can feel the desire for change, a…
This past November in Miami, we celebrated 10 years of IMTC, with an event that we all are very proud of, IMTC WORLD 2019. This year it marked a record in the number of participants and sponsors, but most of all we had a great diversity in companies & institutions that keep on opening our…
Global payment and remittance companies constantly search for a competitive advantage: service enhancements, promotions, industry segments and target customers to name a few. As the world gets smaller and more connected technologically and in communications, those breakthroughs are harder to find, or at least more difficult to differentiate unique features vs. the available options. Enter…
Migrant Services Providers, from Travel & Foreign Exchange, to Remittances, airtime (top-ups), bill payment and now courier services, keep agents afloat while digital services continue their growth Download PDF Money Transfer Agents are a common feature in all migrant neighborhoods in cities across all the 5 continents. Full of services for migrants, they normally serve…
Both social and economic trends in Latin American and Caribbean countries are increasingly shaped by migration and its intersection with development and economic growth. Therefore, understanding future of migration and how its affect the region can offer cues as to the direction countries will take. An outlook of migration in Latin America and the Caribbean…
Nigerians can be found in most countries of the world. Nigerians are numerous in the United States and the UK, followed by South Africa, UAE and other European countries such as Italy & Spain. As a US survey showed, Nigerians in the US are one of the highest educated migration groups. Due to the ever-growing…
Analyzing the results of IMTC ASIA 2018 in Manila September 19-21, the first thing that comes to mind is the very interesting state of the money transfer industry in The Philippines. Companies, colleagues, regulators, government representatives, were very open to share their ideas, their work, their vision, which contributed to understand key transformations that the…
This article was conceived after discussing with colleagues in the industry why the payments world has been driven into the Cash vs. Digital dichotomy. My research on cash has been inspired by analyzing the penalization of cash-based industries, such as the money transfer industry by the banking sector, which has resulted in the derisking phenomenon…
Last week, May 2-5, myself, Hugo Cuevas-Mohr and Olivia Chow, from Yokip Consulting, our partner in the RemTech Awards and The Blockchain Series Coordinator, were in Manila in a round of visits with local authorities, money transfer companies, banks and associations. The main objective was to prepare the program for our coming IMTC ASIA 2018…
In the last months we have seen a great movement by women to raise their voices and demand that institutions, companies and society in general, pays attention to their demands, needs and their equal place in the decisions that we as humans are taking with respect to the world we want to live in and…
PART ONE: Cash: Is the payments king dying? or is the king creating its own separate kingdom? Although is not exactly clear how the payments industry will evolve in the near future, we agree that 2018 is likely to be a significant year for the financial services industry: banks, eCommerce, fintechs, payment institutions and other alternative…
In my recent visit to Chile, where I traveled to make sure the country would be the best site for our 2019 IMC LATAM conference, I was very surprised by the large number of migrants entering the country, the growing number of agents & branches of established money transfer companies such as AFEX, MORE Money…
The news [1] January 2nd didn’t come as a surprise for the industry as President Trump has criticized China for its trade and currency policies and its “America First” slogan has been the damocle’s sword hanging over the deal. We analyzed the deal in a past blog explaining the US Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) involvement in…
For IMTC WORLD in Miami this past November, I decided to present my estimates on the size of the international Money Transfer and X-Border Payments industry, coming to a figure of approximately 1,025 billion USD, based on private communications with industry players and my own analysis (INFOGRAPHIC). The estimate starts from the 600B estimated by…
Co-Chair Olivia Chow reflects on The Blockchain Series (TBS) pilot at IMTC WORLD 2017 in Miami A lot has changed since IMTC Director Hugo Cuevas-Mohr invited Roger Ver, the so-called Bitcoin Jesus, to the IMTC in Miami in 2012, just five years ago. He debated Arun Sharma professor at the University of Miami School of…
QUÉ NOS DEJÓ EL 2017 y cómo vemos a la industria en el próximo año. En un breve resumen escrito según mi perspectiva, voy a recorrer cuatro principales acontecimientos que vivimos en la Industria durante el 2017 y presentarles lo que podemos esperar para el 2018 con el fin de, en conjunto, mantener las empresas del…
As you recall from the earlier blog, there are many reasons for MSBs to be cautiously optimistic: new banks are opening with a focus on various types of MSBs, regional and community-based financial institutions are gearing up to perform appropriate due diligence on potential clients, online firms who do not require branches for deposits are…
Let’s first remember. In April 15, 2017, Alibaba’s financial affiliate Ant Financial (Ant) agreed to purchase MoneyGram International, Inc. (MGI) for $18 per share. Ant, which is controlled by the famous Alibaba CEO Jack Ma, increased its price from $13.25 to $18 after RIA’s Euronet put in a bid for $15.20. In order for the…
Key positive developments in banking for MSBs It’s been a bleak period for money transmitters over the past several years. The specter of derisking —that business-killing policy of many banks in the US and globally—may be disappearing. At least in the US where other entities are stepping up. Our colleagues in other parts of the…
I am going to venture myself to write this article on Compliance, with the disclaimer that I am not a compliance professional and that the idea behind this is to get compliance colleagues to comment and compliance officers to pay attention. Talking last week to a fintech company about their payment processing services in Mexico,…
On Friday, September 22nd, we closed our first Africa Conference. As I mentioned to all participants, the whole process of developing the conference was, from the start, an uphill race, surmounting obstacles and convincing sceptics. But just days before the event, the pieces of the puzzle came in together and a bright and inspiring panorama…
De-risking was an acute illness for the Caribbean financial sector in 2015 and 2016. In 2017, the height of the fever has broken, but the patient is still sick. Though correspondent banks in developed countries are no longer dropping services to Caribbean banks at a rapid pace, the region’s economies remain encumbered with a residue…
Daniel Trías, consultant and specialist in foreign trade, banking, finance and family remittances, founder of DT Consulting and Member of the IMTC Advisory Board and who has accompanied the “Cono Sur” (southern cone) Associations in their meetings, their initiatives to find solutions to De-Risking, such as Creation of CIASEFIM, presents this Document entitled: “De-Risking: The…
How De-Risking is changing the face of Financial Services worldwide In July 6th & 8th the Economist published two articles that, again, raised the de-risking threat discussion to new levels. The July 6th article was entitled “The great unbanking [1] – Swingeing fines have made banks too risk-averse – It is time to rethink anti-money-laundering…
Mexican migrants in the USA are first class Mexicans. They are in general the risk-taker population, hardworking, with a different work ethic compared to the average American worker. They give a different value to their labor and the remuneration that they receive for that effort. Some are prosperous entrepreneurs too. Success stories abound throughout the…
Leon is a seasoned expert and business leader in the payments, remittances and money transfer industry. He has over 25 years hands-on experience and since 2007 has led DMA, Developing Markets Associates, a development consultancy based in the UK that provides a broad range of services that helps to mobilise funds into developing markets. Leon…
