Puedo asegurar que la mayoría de las personas entienden el derisking (o de-risking), como la palabra en inglés lo dice claramente: “de o off y risk o riesgo”. En el caso de servicios financieros, implica reducir el riesgo. También podemos llamarlo debanking (desbancarizar), y tal vez el término sea más apropiado porque explica, para la…
I will argue that most everyone understands derisking, as the word clearly states it: “the lowering of risk”, and in the case of financial services, that implies setting parameters of where the risk lies, and how to mitigate it and manage it. We can call it debanking too and maybe that is more appropriate. Because…
Lourdes Soto, Consultora de Mohr World Consulting radicada en Madrid, España, hace un recuento breve del “Cierre de Cuentas a Entidades de Pago por Bancos Comerciales en España” en el cual resume la dificil situación de derisking en España que ha resultado en Entidades de Pago llevando a las cortes a los bancos comerciales para detener…
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…
European Regulators all share a strong will to address de-risking practices in the European Union as they can leave customers without access to the financial system. Back in September 2020, the European Commission (EC) published a Retail Payment Strategy in which it set its objectives to improve cross-border payments involving non-EU countries, including remittances, to…
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…
I did a research these past few days trying to find out when the first articles and news about the disruption of remittances by the fintech revolution were published. I could not find any before 2010, the year when the first IMTC Conference took place in Miami. The first articles have dates dating to 2011…
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…
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…
Read my blog inspired by the article written in Medium by fintech author John Biggs about his life during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York which he named “Racing in the Dark”. He referenced other authors and books to remind us that, as humans, we once spent whole seasons confined, hibernating, overwintering. The article let…
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…
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…
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…
Last week at the ESTA Conference, the European Cash Management Companies Association’s yearly event, this time in Vienna, I moderated a panel entitled “The war on cash: black clouds or blue sky ahead?”. For the panel, I had the opportunity to have some of the best speakers on the subject, Fabio Andreotti, Professor Dr. Gerald…
The Money Transfers & Remittances industry is a relatively young industry. Started in the early eighties, it saw a great technological breakthrough, the fax, that transformed the way orders were filled in distant corners of the earth and transmitted for payment. The evolution since then has been mesmerizing. I analyze the trends in the industry…
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…
In a recent Press Release, the Money Services Business Association (MSBA) – the US trade association that represents the growing non-bank money services industry, announced the formation of a new Board of Directors, a new Chairman of the Board and new Board members. The MSBA named Viamericas Corporation CEO Paul Dwyer as its new Chairman, succeeding…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
