Hugo is a writer, a conference speaker, an event producer, an inquisitive panel moderator and an opinionated consultant in cross-border services industries and a mentor with vast experience, who speaks English, Spanish, French and who loves to run, bike, swim... and walk over long distances.

Pandemia y Derisking – ¿Oportunidad Perdida?

En agosto de 2017 publiqué en un IMTC Blog el documento llamado “El Riesgo del No Riesgo” dando una visión de la realidad existente en esos momentos del fenómeno denominado “De-Risking”, e hice un estudio profundo, citando a varios autores, actores e instituciones de la escenario público y privado de los países de Latinoamérica. El…

2021: The year that might be

Most of my industry information has come from doing the IMTC Conferences for the past 10 years, from the panels and roundtables that I moderate or participate in. IMTC, as most event companies, had a rough year as we postponed IMTC LATAM in Buenos Aires, IMTC EMEA in London and IMTC ASIA in Vietnam. We…

Love & Death: Agents vs. Digital

It seems that the world is convinced that one of the teachings that this COVID-19 crisis has brought us is the need to step-up the drive to digital in the provision of financial services. There is a new consensus that ditching face-to-face contacts – and brick-and-mortar locations, and replace them with digital interactions is the…

laBITconf 2019 en su séptima Edición

LaBITconf, la conferencia latinoamericana de Bitcoin y Blockchain es probablemente una de las conferencias que más disfruto cada año. Y esta vez, en su séptima edición en Montevideo, del 12 al 14 de Diciembre, nuevamente fue un gran evento. Es tan llena de vida, creatividad, originalidad, donde se siente ese deseo de cambio, una sensación…

The Growth of Migrant Services

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…

Cash & Digital: black clouds or blue skies?

La semana pasada, en la conferencia anual de ESTA, European Cash Management Association (Asociación de Compañías Europeas de Gestión de Dinero), esta vez en Viena, participé en la moderación de un panel denominado “The war on cash: black clouds or blue sky ahead?” (La guerra contra el efectivo: ¿nubes negras o cielos despejados en el…

IMTC ASIA 2018 SUMMARY

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…

Digital vs. Cash, are we getting it all wrong?

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…

Estimating the Volume of the Industry

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…

What Is Driving Remittances to the Region (Latam)?

On November 15th, the Financial Services Advisor, a Newsletter published by The Interamerican Dialogue, a Washington, DC think tank where well-known remittance expert Manuel Orozco is the Director of the Migration, Remittances and Development Program, has published a Q&A entitled What Is Driving Remittances to the Region? where Manuel and several colleagues – including myself, most obliged,…

The Antimonopoly Prosecutor in Chile sides with MSBs on Bank Account Closures

We thank our colleague Carlos Grossman, for the report out of Chile where the Antimonopoly Division of the National Economic Prosecutor Office (División Antimonopolios de la Fiscalía Nacional Económica – FNE)  reports the investigation that took place after an August 2015 complaint by a Forex Firm denouncing seven banks of denying the opening of a…