Economic migration and refugees fleeing war and persecution continue to add a layer of complexity to the challenge of cross-border payments and remittances
REMITTANCES
THE CHALLENGES OF REMITTANCES IN A WORLD THAT ’ S ON THE MOVE
Economic migration and refugees fleeing war and persecution continue to add a layer of complexity to the challenge of cross-border payments and remittances
WRITTEN BY : ALEX CLERE
The need for reliable and secure remittances services has never been higher . According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ( UNHCR ), there are now more than 110m displaced people in the world , forced to flee their homes because of circumstances like war or famine .
The problem has been exacerbated in the last couple of years by Russia ’ s invasion of Ukraine , the return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan , and the military coup in Niger – the West African nation once a bastion of peace on the continent , now a clear demonstration that conflict and unrest are rapidly becoming part of everyday modern life .
Refugees and asylum seekers present their own challenges when it comes to remittances : the countries they are fleeing are , more often than not , relatively unstable with little or no payment infrastructure . They may present a patchwork of different payment cultures – from mobile payments to wire transfers .
And , of course , even without the nationby-nation idiosyncrasies that make remittances more complex , there are the usual hurdles that come with moving money across borders . This is without even touching upon the additional demographic of economic migrants – people who move for work , rather than fleeing war or persecution , who inevitably want to send money back home to friends and family .
What are the challenges in cross-border payments ? Speaking to FinTech Magazine at Money20 / 20 Europe in Amsterdam earlier in the year , Global Head of the Wise Platform Abid Mumtaz explained to us some of the challenges that persist when it comes to cross-border payments .
“ Moving money generally across borders has always been a very difficult thing when
118 September 2023