Remesas

Emigrados de América Latina y el Caribe enviaron unos 66.500 millones de dólares a sus países de origen en el 2007, alrededor de 7 por ciento más que el año anterior, según estimaciones presentadas hoy por el Fondo Multilateral de Inversiones (FOMIN) del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo.

“Esta es la primera vez desde que comenzamos a estudiar las remesas en el año 2000 que no hemos registrado un aumento de dos dígitos”, señaló el gerente del FOMIN, Donald F. Terry. “Esto se explica mayormente porque los dos principales destinatarios de las remesas en la región, México y Brasil, no siguieron las tendencias pasadas.”

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Sending money back home? Just press "talk."

That's what Western Union, Radio Shack and the small wireless carrier Trumpet Mobile hope millions of Hispanic immigrants will do with a new service announced yesterday.

Though financial turmoil has put credit card, mortgage and auto markets at a standstill, the flow of money immigrants send overseas continues to increase.

In 2007, $65.5 billion in remittances were sent to Latin American and Caribbean nations, up 7 percent from the previous year, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.

That, combined with the fast-growing sales of cellphones among immigrants in the United States and developing countries, has caught the attention of Western Union, which offers wire transfer services and in 1861 set up the first transcontinental telegraph line in North America.

Manuel Orozco of the Inter-American Dialogue speaks on remittance and decentralization with comments from MIF remittance specialist Robert Meins. They spoke at the Hemispheric Forum "The Consequences of the Decentralization Process and the Challenges to Democratic Governance".

Please click on picture to view the videos. 

Appleseed, a network of public interest justice centers in the U.S. and Mexico, released a first-of-its kind guide to assist banks and other financial institutions in better serving the growing remittance market. Immigrants living in the U.S. sent $62.3 billion to Mexico and Latin America in 2006, according to recent estimates from the Inter-American Development Bank.

In addition to providing a detailed market overview, “Banking in a Global Market” offers a comprehensive hands-on approach to setting up transparent and efficient remittance services, drawing on the experiences of large and small financial institutions throughout the U.S.

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