Newsletter
Money Transfers Newsletter, April 2008
Dr. B.R. Shetty set up UAE Exchange in 1980. The company now employs 5000 people worldwide. Since then, it has grown from one branch in Abu Dhabi to more than 400 branches in over 16 countries and agent arrangements in over 83 countries. Mr Mohan Shetty received the IAMTN Award at the GCMT Conference in London on behalf of Dr B.R. Shetty and UAE Exchange.
Money laundering, literally, means cleaning illicit profits in order to obscure their source and bringing it into use. Typical sources are drug and arms trafficking, financial fraud, corruption, piracy/ IPR theft, etc. and increasingly, the monies so obtained are becoming linked with terror financing. The idea behind laundering the money is to move it around, through various systems so many times that it becomes difficult to trace its origins and make it appear to have been earned from legitimate sources. According to anti-money laundering (AML) experts, the use of shell companies with partly legitimate business interests is rising.
Money Transfers Newsletter, February 2008
The international and UK press has widely covered the release of the Remittance Customer Charter. Editor Meena Kansal talks to the man behind the Charter, Leon Isaacs, CEO of Developing Market Associates and a member of the UK Remittance Task Force.
Money Transfers Newsletter, January 2008
Kenny Zair, Director of SFS Amman is doing something many would think impossible. His company, SFS Amman operates in the Iraqi remittance market and he is extremely bullish about its growth potential.
US-based investment banking firm William Blair's Robert Metzger talks to Editor Meena Kansal about the company and the remittance business.
Remittance industry think tank International Association of Money Transfer Networks announced the launch of their new conference MONEY TRANSFERS DUBAI 2008 to take place on the 28th April 2008 at Habtoor Resort in Dubai.
Amongst the trends that stand out in the international remittance area, one of the most talked about is consolidation.
Money Transfers Newsletter, December 2007
“In the UK, according to our best estimates, around £2.3bn worth of remittances are made each year. The money transfer sector is growing rapidly. Already we have almost 4000 money transfer business operating out of almost 30,000 premises. A transparent and robust system for overseas money transfers is crucial and we need the market to work as effectively as possible.”
Western Union continues to be the market leader in the money transfer market, with around 14% of the global market. David Schlapbach, General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Western Union, took the industry perspective to the regulators in his speech at the 3rd Global Consumer Money Transfer Conference held in London last month. Editor Meena Kansal spoke to him afterwards to get his view point on other important issues surrounding Western Union's business in the sector.
Nick Ford, Head of Payments, CapGemini, explains the third World Payments Report in its view of the future of the money transfer industry in Europe and globally.
Says Nick Ford, “The essence of the report is that there is going to be a complete change in the payments market within Europe. That change will be heavily affected by additional services, new markets and the entry of more international players both within and outside the European arena.
Russia was well-represented at the conference and indeed, there is much interest from the money transfer industry in this rapidly growing region. Industry, regulators, investors and analysts presented their diverse viewpoints to create dimensional picture of the Russian remittance market. A large country with a steady stream of immigrants, particularly from the surrounding CIS countries, Russia is a significant sender of remittances into Central Asia, Eastern Europe, China and other regions.
IAMTN has decided to respond to a very real need for a global payments database which is correct, detailed and available covering every corner of the world. All sectors of the payments industry will be included; namely money service businesses, their agents, banks and their agents/links, pre-payment cards, mobile phone companies who transmit payments; regulators and service providers. It will include authoritative analyst's reports, merger details, legal entity information, etc.
“We are creating a very sophisticated platform to run our remittance products on.” Jack Jared, Head of Global Payments, Citigroup, talks about the company's increasing interest in the money transfer market.
Q: What are Citigroup's targets in the money transfer market? What do you hope to achieve?
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