The new world of international money transfers.

The Herald Tribune today had an extensive article on the growing role
of money transfers in feeding money to the 3rd world from the Industrial.

http://www.iht.com/articles/130659.html

Generally travelers bring their own money when coming to Europe in the
form of traveler`s checks or debit cards from their home bank accounts.
Emergency transfers are to be avoided since they are uncertain and slow.
If one maintains a brokerage account in the US, however, foreign offices
will likely exist and one can arrange to get money there. Although wiring
is considered quick, the actual time might involve as much as a week,
and I have had wired money ³lost² for weeks.

In a former epoch Americans living in Paris made regular trips to the
American express office to pick up transfers (or mail). Later they could
draw
money using their Amex cards and personal checks. ATM machines avoid this.

Occasionally some Americans maintain overseas bank accounts but the
cost of wiring or the cost AND slowness of check transfers made use of
ATM machines cheaper and more convenient.

The world of the foreigner worker from a 3rd world country is different
and they do use mandat or money order transfers a lot. Within France
money sent to a prison account has to be done by mandat ³cash nationally.
This runs 5.6 euros charges on 100 euros. A copy of the mandat has
to be mailed separately to the precipitant.

The IHT article says that there is some push to get the companies
involved with sending the money (like Western Union) to lower their
rates, which can run as much as 10-20% of the sum sent. The cost
of sending is actually only 2-3% and reasonable profit margins could
still be obtained lower rates from 10%.

Use of checks between countries is dropping since the bank charges have
been too high. In France, the use of debit cards has just pass, in monetary
mass terms, the use of checks nationally. A Frenchman using a debit card in
Germany will not have any important charges, using a check is much higher.

Some 3rd world transfers are arranged by people in one country giving
a member of their family a debit card and pin number on an account which
they can use to draw a certain amount of money per month on.

The transfers back to these 3rd world countries probably in excess of
100 billion dollars a year now. This is grown rapidly in recent years.

Earl

Earl Evleth wrote:
The Herald Tribune today had an extensive article on the growing role
of money transfers in feeding money to the 3rd world from the Industrial.

Here in Adams Morgan (fairly high-rent area of DC) there are branches of
Salvadoran and Guatemalan banks specifically for workers remitting money
back to their home countries. For some reason they are not located in the
primarily Latino area, but instead on the city's busiest food-and-drink
strip (18th St). The cost of doing business there is high so they must be
making some serious money to justify the location.

miguel
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