Innovation in Financial Services

THE SHIFTING VIEWS ON FAMILY REMITTANCES

13 Feb 2017

After a series of media interviews a couple of weeks ago, in a trip to Guatemala, I realized in a moment that I was witnessing a change in the public perception of remittances that I had not grasped before. Answering one by one journalist questions, it was unquestionable that I was witnessing a shift that I had not noticed before. After thinking a...

OVERSEAS WORKERS IN SAUDI ARABIA: Lay-offs, Remittances and Government intervention

08 Sep 2016

The situation in Saudi Arabia for overseas workers is critical. During the oil boom migrant workers went from 5.3M in 2000 to 10.2M in 2015 according to UN figures. More than 1M have lost their jobs in 2016 and remittances are dropping more than 20% every month compared to last year's figures. Shivaji Sarkar wrote in The Pioneer: “The hiking petro...

Financial Services Regulation

FATF-GAFI GUIDANCE - A Risk-Based Approach for Money or Value Transfer Services

03 Mar 2016

The timing could not have been better. FATF just published – February 2016, a report that all Compliance Officers of this industry must read, entitled Guidance for a Risk-Based Approach for Money or Value Transfer Services (Summary – Full Report (69 pages). I want to highlight three statements in the presentation of the report: The risk-based app...

Financial Services Regulation

The US Government Accountability Office -GAO Reports on INTERNATIONAL REMITTANCES

02 Mar 2016

I think it is very important that every person in the International Money Transfer & Payments (IMT&Ps) industry reads the GAO Report published on February 16th, 2016, entitled INTERNATIONAL REMITTANCES: Actions Needed to Address Unreliable Official U.S. Estimate – Highlights Page (1 page), Full Report (62 pages). A second report published t...