Remittances without borders

• Main Authors: TAN Swee Liang, Venkataramanan, S. N., KISHORA, Anil
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2015
• Subjects: Migrant workers; remittances; mobile phones; Asia; Asian Studies; Finance; International Economics
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/1894; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soe_research/article/2894/viewcontent/remittanceWithoutBorders.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

A Pan-Asian Mobile Remittance Platform might just be the next big disruption in global remittances. One out of every 28 people lives in a country that they were not born in. As migrants, they are estimated by The World Bank to send home US$636 billion in 2017, with three-quarters remitted to developing countries. These remittances form a significant percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of many of these developing countries. Given their magnitude and contribution to national economies, even a small reduction in remittance cost adds billions to these local economies. Mobile-to-mobile cross border remittances have recently shown that not only can the remittance costs be significantly brought down, but the money can also be delivered virtually in the hands of the beneficiary. We propose that with six of the top 10 remittance receiving countries of the world located in Asia, it is time to set up a Pan-Asian Mobile Remittance Platform that would enable migrants to remit money home at low cost using their mobile phones.