Remittance Service Providers (RSPs), the businesses providing remittance services for a fee to migrant workers and their families, encompass a wide array of financial and non-financial organisations. They include Money Transfer Operators (MTOs), postal networks, banks, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and multi-channel operators. Factors such as having a bank account, trust, cost, speed, convenience and security define whether a migrant worker will prefer to use one service instead of another.
Today, there is no single integrated global remittance market; instead, there are multiple markets acting as networks connecting a varying quantity of country corridors, along which global, regional and national RSPs operate under different legal and regulatory frameworks.
An estimated 3,000 RSPs worldwide charge more than US$30 billion to process approximately 2 billion transactions annually. They use a range of traditional and technological methods to initiate and deliver remittances from the “first to the last mile.”
Remittances are expected to remain a stable source of finance to meet the immediate needs and aspirations of millions of families around the world. If legal and regulatory frameworks facilitate the use of technology and innovation, mobile phones, digital money, Internet-based mobile and Web applications will continue to drive down costs, strengthen financial access, and improve the possibility to deliver additional services.