The global remittance industry will be gathering at the MTI Global Remittance Summit 2009 in London on 10 & 11 November to foster an understanding of best practices, standards, trends and analysis of latest industry developments.

Money Transfer International (MTI) has received the backing of WIZZIT’s Brian Richardson, who says it is important for the global remittances industry to have one voice.

WIZZIT is a South African bank operating as a division of The South African Bank of Athens. It targets an estimated 16 million unbanked or underbanked South Africans, which is about 60 percent of the country’s population.

Richardson, who is managing director of WIZZIT, emphasises that when it comes to banking the unbanked, the simplicity of the product is crucial as it is essential not to confuse the target market: “We see money transfer as one part of banking the unbanked. Our view is to try and alleviate poverty by giving people access to a full spectrum of financial services. Domestic money transfers are part and parcel of our offering, rather than just being the offering.”

Richardson says that until now, banks have perceived the payments space as their domain. However, he expects to see more alliances between financial institutions and mobile operators in future due to the qualities that both parties can offer.

Nevertheless, he cautions that banks and mobile operators need to consider how any partnership will work commercially, given that they will be operating at the low end of the market where margins are very small.

“I think a lot of these questions will evolve over time and there are not any easy answers to them. I do not think there is anything that is cast in stone at this point. There are lots of models and paradigms that are being experimented with, and traditional ones are being challenged,” says Richardson.

How banks can collaborate with partners to provide an efficient and competitive service for the senders and recipients of remittance payments will be discussed during the MTI Global Remittance Summit 2009.