Sending Money

Episode 4 discusses the fundamentals of international money transfers, building from Personal Transfers and remittances - P2P - Person to Person, to the transfers involving businesses, P2B, B2P and B2B. We saw how technology and migration impacted the development of the industry; now I will explain how the information of the payment to be made across the world and the value of the transfer, goes from origin to destination, from sender to beneficiary. Sending money internationally may sound easy but a very complex system has been built to achieve cross-border transfers and payments in an efficient, fast and secured way and as cheap as possible. I will guide you through the details of the channels, the market participants and the challenges the industry faces to serve their clients. 

Episode 3 discusses migration as the catalyst for the development of the remittance industry. Besides technology providing the tools as we saw in Episode 2, migration provided the customers, the two most important components of remittances and the development of cross-border payments. Wendell Samuel wrote this in 1990 when studies of remittances were just beginning: The issue of remittances arises only because there has been a prior decision to migrate, therefore, the analysis of remittances cannot be separated from the analysis of the factors that motivate migration. The increased migration from developing countries and the need to send money back to their families in their countries of origin have been the driving force behind all the ventures created to serve them.

In episode 2 we will explore the impact of technology in cross-border financial services and how inventions, mainly in communications, have created the payments revolution that we are witnessing. EFTs or Electronic Funds Transfers, were initiated with Telex, then came the Fax, then internet, and so on. Technology evolution built the cross-border payment industry.

This introduction is for us to get acquainted. I want you to know what are we up to as we embark on this series about money transfers, from the early days of family remittances to the fintech revolution, 40 years of a constantly challenging the financial services industry. I want to tell you how the explosive growth of this industry came about!