MONEY TRANSFER INTERNATIONAL’S MISSION

As the World Bank website reports, “Flows to all countries are estimated to be $420b in 2009.”

Informal money transfer flows have been estimated by Dilip Ratha, Senior Economist at the World Bank to be more than double that figure.

Remittances and payments have moved up the agenda in awareness and importance.  The G-20 Toronto Summit Financial Inclusion Experts Group published its Nine Principles to improve financial services including remittances.

In the light of the scale of global remittances, a clear need has emerged to lobby regulators on behalf of providers of payments services, and their suppliers for a numbers of reasons.

• Cross-border retail payments are increasingly important as an enabler for global economic growth, yet are relatively unrepresented. The G-20 Initiative is committed to promoting best practice including a reduction in fees to send money home.
• Unintended consequences of recent regulation are inhibiting payments service providers from serving this market.
• Transaction banking at the forefront of change – no better time to organise and campaign for improvement at industry level.
• Technology racing ahead of regulators – need to create better connectivity between the two.
• Non-bank money transfer providers are on the increase.

Money transfers services an increasingly wider range of purposes:

• Remittances – sending money home
• Person to Person transactions
• Business to Business transactions
• Development of aid, inward investment and in the round, international development

Where services fail to provide, the market
place shifts to the vast informal sector

Why MTI?

Representative bodies in country tend to be local if they exist at all. No body has existed until now to handle the international cross-border transfers - a rapidly growing industry.

Money Transfer International’s role is, on behalf of the payments industry;

• To highlight the unintended consequences
• Help regulators  to optimise relations
• Encourage innovation
• Sustain industry core values

MTI is international

Inclusive – on all sides of the payments sector

Consequently there is a clear role for a trade body whose focus centres on international funds movement and trade.

MTI task is:

• To assist Regulators with encouraging non-regulated cross border transfers to move to electronic and therefore transparent methods
• To help find the balance to exclude illegal transfers such as funding of terrorism or international financial crime – at the same time safeguarding the legitimate transaction
• To bring new sources of services to the market, hence assist suppliers of payments services to reach their target markets
• To articulate best practice ie. Cost, speed, transparency, governance
• To show case technology where it can enable the above aims.