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The new MONEY SERVICE BUSINESS ASSOCIATION – MSBA – is announced in the US

Associations, News & CommentsBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr August 27, 2015

The organizing committee, in its first public announcement, stated: “The MSBA is a trade association focused on the non-bank money services industry, including licensed money transmitters and their agents/authorized delegates, payment card issuers and distributors, payment processors, international remittance companies, bill payment companies, mobile payment application providers, payment aggregators, virtual currency exchanges and administrators, eWallet providers…

MTRA – The Money Transmitters Regulators Association

Associations, News & CommentsBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr August 26, 2015

The Money Transmitters Regulators Association will hold its 25th Annual Conference in October 6-9 in Kansas City Missouri. This conference is mainly attended by regulators from all the states that license Non-Bank Financial Institutions that are required to obtain a license to offer their services to customers in their state. The Money transmitter industry is also present…

DE-RISKING: THE MOVING TARGET

Compliance & Regulation, De-RiskingBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr February 12, 2015

On De-Risking, Recent Bank Account Closures, The Somalian Remittance Crisis and the loud calls to try to resolve the MSB Bank Discontinuance crisis in the US (and UK, Australia… and almost everywhere) In English, a “moving target” is when you set your expectation for something – some task, some desirable outcome, a target, and then when it…

US TREASURY ROUNDTABLE ON FINANCIAL ACCESS FOR MONEY SERVICE BUSINESSES

Compliance & Regulation, De-RiskingBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr January 14, 2015

Right at 9 am, in the Cash Room of the Treasury Building last Tuesday, January 13th,, 100+ attendees gathered to participate in the Roundtable.

Bank Discontinuance, the G20 and the taxing of remittances

De-Risking, News & CommentsBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr November 23, 2014

Bank Discontinuance of MTOs in Australia has been in the news for a couple of weeks and all the small and medium sized companies in the country are being forced to shutdown because all the major banks have been closing their accounts and letters of discontinuance have been sent to the 5,000+ MTOs in the…

Access to Banking Services by Money Transfer Institutions

De-RiskingBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr May 22, 2014

The problem

We can’t say that the access to banking accounts problem is new in the Money Transfer Industry, not in the USA or a number of other countries. It was one of the reasons why the NMTA was formed back in 1996, David Landsman, Executive Director, reminds us every now and then. So why is this a such an urgent issue in 2014? I think the answer is that in the last decade a large number of small money transfer companies, with very little capital and minimal compliance structures were the first to go, now is the medium sized, larger companies, well funded, with large investments in technology and compliance the ones that are feeling the brunt. What should the industry do?

RCTF – The Private Sector Workstream – April 30, 2020 Virtual Roundtable

Associations, De-Risking, IMTC, News & CommentsBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr May 2, 2020

Update on the Remittance Community Task Force – RCTF: The Private Sector – As you should know by now, especially if you read our first article on the Remittance Community Task Force (RCTF), this is an initiative created by IFAD from a UN mandate, to get all the stakeholders in the money transfer sector to bring…

Customer Expectations In The Payments Industry

Artículos, Compliance & Regulation, De-RiskingBy Brandi Reynolds March 5, 2020

Industry In attempting to determine future trends in the payments industry, a good question to ask is, “What are customer expectations?”. I believe we can all agree that customers want the payments they send and receive to be realized in real-time with minimum fees. They also want the option of which payment service provider they choose to…

Digital vs. Cash, are we getting it all wrong?

Artículos, Compliance & Regulation, De-Risking, IMTC, News & Comments, Virtual CurrenciesBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr June 10, 2018

This article was conceived after discussing with colleagues in the industry why the payments world has been driven into the Cash vs. Digital dichotomy. My research on cash has been inspired by analyzing the penalization of cash-based industries, such as the money transfer industry by the banking sector, which has resulted in the derisking phenomenon…

Preparing for IMTC ASIA 2018 in September

Artículos, Associations, Country Profiles, IMTC, News & Comments, UncategorizedBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr May 7, 2018

Last week, May 2-5, myself, Hugo Cuevas-Mohr and Olivia Chow, from Yokip Consulting, our partner in the RemTech Awards and The Blockchain Series Coordinator, were in Manila in a round of visits with local authorities, money transfer companies, banks and associations. The main objective was to prepare the program for our coming IMTC ASIA 2018…

WOMEN IN THE MONEY TRANSFER INDUSTRY

Associations, IMTCBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr March 18, 2018

In the last months we have seen a great movement by women to raise their voices and demand that institutions, companies and society in general, pays attention to their demands, needs and their equal place in the decisions that we as humans are taking with respect to the world we want to live in and…

THE FUTURE OF PAYMENTS: MTOs, PIs, REMTECH & THE BLOCKCHAIN

Artículos, De-Risking, IMTC, News & CommentsBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr March 3, 2018

PART ONE: Cash: Is the payments king dying? or is the king creating its own separate kingdom? Although is not exactly clear how the payments industry will evolve in the near future, we agree that 2018 is likely to be a significant year for the financial services industry: banks, eCommerce, fintechs, payment institutions and other alternative…

CHILE: WHERE MIGRANTS BECOME AN EVERYDAY SURPRISE

Artículos, De-Risking, IMTC, News & CommentsBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr February 13, 2018

In my recent visit to Chile, where I traveled to make sure the country would be the best site for our 2019 IMC LATAM conference, I was very surprised by the large number of migrants entering the country, the growing number of agents & branches of established money transfer companies such as AFEX, MORE Money…

QUÉ NOS DEJÓ EL 2017

Artículos, De-Risking, IMTC, News & CommentsBy Daniel Trias December 19, 2017

QUÉ NOS DEJÓ EL 2017 y cómo vemos a la industria en el próximo año. En un breve resumen escrito según mi perspectiva, voy a recorrer cuatro principales acontecimientos que vivimos en la Industria durante el 2017 y presentarles lo que podemos esperar para el 2018 con el fin de, en conjunto, mantener las empresas del…

What Is Driving Remittances to the Region (Latam)?

Artículos, Associations, InterviewsBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr November 16, 2017

On November 15th, the Financial Services Advisor, a Newsletter published by The Interamerican Dialogue, a Washington, DC think tank where well-known remittance expert Manuel Orozco is the Director of the Migration, Remittances and Development Program, has published a Q&A entitled What Is Driving Remittances to the Region? where Manuel and several colleagues – including myself, most obliged,…

The Antimonopoly Prosecutor in Chile sides with MSBs on Bank Account Closures

Artículos, Compliance & Regulation, Country Profiles, De-Risking, News & CommentsBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr November 13, 2017

We thank our colleague Carlos Grossman, for the report out of Chile where the Antimonopoly Division of the National Economic Prosecutor Office (División Antimonopolios de la Fiscalía Nacional Económica – FNE) reports the investigation that took place after an August 2015 complaint by a Forex Firm denouncing seven banks of denying the opening of a…

The Evolving Relationship Between Banks and MSBs

Artículos, De-Risking, IMTC, News & CommentsBy Rob Ayers November 12, 2017

As you recall from the earlier blog, there are many reasons for MSBs to be cautiously optimistic: new banks are opening with a focus on various types of MSBs, regional and community-based financial institutions are gearing up to perform appropriate due diligence on potential clients, online firms who do not require branches for deposits are…

FROM DERISKING TO DETENTE

Artículos, De-Risking, IMTCBy Rob Ayers October 16, 2017

Key positive developments in banking for MSBs It’s been a bleak period for money transmitters over the past several years. The specter of derisking —that business-killing policy of many banks in the US and globally—may be disappearing. At least in the US where other entities are stepping up. Our colleagues in other parts of the…

Blockchain-based solutions to the Caribbean derisking problem

Artículos, Compliance & Regulation, Country Profiles, De-Risking, IMTCBy Virginia Martinez October 4, 2017

De-risking was an acute illness for the Caribbean financial sector in 2015 and 2016. In 2017, the height of the fever has broken, but the patient is still sick. Though correspondent banks in developed countries are no longer dropping services to Caribbean banks at a rapid pace, the region’s economies remain encumbered with a residue…

DE-RISKING: THE RISK OF NO RISK

Artículos, Compliance & Regulation, De-Risking, IMTCBy Daniel Trias August 14, 2017

Daniel Trías, consultant and specialist in foreign trade, banking, finance and family remittances, founder of DT Consulting and Member of the IMTC Advisory Board and who has accompanied the “Cono Sur” (southern cone) Associations in their meetings, their initiatives to find solutions to De-Risking, such as Creation of CIASEFIM, presents this Document entitled: “De-Risking: The…

DE-RISKING AND THE GREAT UNBANKING CHALLENGE

Artículos, Compliance & Regulation, De-Risking, IMTC, News & CommentsBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr July 29, 2017

How De-Risking is changing the face of Financial Services worldwide In July 6th & 8th the Economist published two articles that, again, raised the de-risking threat discussion to new levels. The July 6th article was entitled “The great unbanking [1] – Swingeing fines have made banks too risk-averse – It is time to rethink anti-money-laundering…

Family Remittances and “de-risking”: The Case of Mexico

Artículos, Associations, Country Profiles, De-Risking, IMTC, News & CommentsBy Salvador Velazquez July 25, 2017

Mexican migrants in the USA are first class Mexicans. They are in general the risk-taker population, hardworking, with a different work ethic compared to the average American worker. They give a different value to their labor and the remuneration that they receive for that effort. Some are prosperous entrepreneurs too. Success stories abound throughout the…

THE UNBANKED AND THE IMPORTANCE OF NBFIS IN THE US

Artículos, De-Risking, IMTC, News & CommentsBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr July 11, 2017

How the financial crisis, the evolution of Banking and Unbanking and the rise of technology in financial services are all connected The financial crisis and the rise of technology in financial services, that has led to an increase in the importance of NBFIs (Non-Bank Financial Institutions) in the provision of financial services, has created a…

IMTC LATAM 2017 Afterthoughts

Artículos, Associations, IMTC, News & CommentsBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr March 15, 2017

Never before in an IMTC Conference we have had so many representatives from such a large number of sectors of society: politicians, ex-politicians, researchers, academics, pollsters, migration specialists, opinion makers, journalists, social workers, representatives of NGOs, cooperatives, “Cajas” (community banks), workers’ banks, entrepreneurs, remittance companies directives and commercial bank executives. I think that three factors…

The Taxing of Remittances in the US

Artículos, Compliance & Regulation, De-Risking, IMTC, News & Comments, Virtual CurrenciesBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr March 4, 2017

Update – February 16, 2018 ; New Bill in Oklahoma and Nebraska – Contributed by the MSBA Georgia & Iowa move to leverage a tax on remittances – Financial Institutions are reacting In a previous blog (in Spanish), posted in the midst of the many reporter calls, especially from Latinamerica (driven by the anxiety over the…

The shifting views on family remittances

Compliance & Regulation, De-Risking, News & CommentsBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr February 6, 2017

After a series of media interviews a couple of weeks ago, in a trip to Guatemala, I realized in a moment that I was witnessing a change in the public perception of remittances that I had not grasped before. Answering one by one journalist questions, it was unquestionable that I was witnessing a shift that I had not noticed before. After thinking about it, I could say that the shift is global although that doesn’t mean that a shift is happening in the same way or at the same time in every region or country in the world. Having been a part of the remittance industry for three decades I suddenly saw it very clearly. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself so let’s back up a little.

Las amenazas de Trump – Remesas, impuestos, migración, deportaciones y la construcción del muro

Artículos, Associations, Compliance & Regulation, De-Risking, News & CommentsBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr January 15, 2017

Remesas, impuestos, migración, deportaciones y la construcción del muro

Durante las primarias presidenciales republicanas del año pasado, Donald Trump expuso su propuesta de cómo forzar a México a pagar por el muro de 1,000 millas en la frontera entre Estados Unidos y este país. Los periodistas Bob Woodward y Robert Costa del Washington Post publicaron en Abril 5 de 2016 la noticia (http://wapo.st/2jbWHFn) en la cual Trump manifestaba su intención de amenazar a México con “cortar el suministro de remesas”. Trump envió en esta ocasión un memorando de dos páginas…

CIASEFIM-INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF MONEY TRANSFER ASSOCIATIONS

Associations, De-RiskingBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr December 27, 2016

On December 12 in São Paulo, Brazil at the 2nd ABRACAM COMPLIANCE DAY an International Commission of Associations of Money Transfers Companies, Non-Bank Financial Services Companies, Foreign Exchange Firms and their Agents, was formed to make a public statement, signed by all the Associations, voicing their extreme concern regarding the negative impacts of “DE-RISKING” in the economic, financial e social areas of several countries in the region. They had met previously in November 11th, as part of IMTC WORLD 2016 “DE-RISKING & BANK DISCONTINUANCE FORUM” that discussed the impact of this practice in the Money Transfer, Remittance and Payment Industry. The termination of correspondent accounts of foreign financial institutions (FFIs) by US Commercial Banks as well as some these US Banks forcing local bank account closures by their corresponding banks in many countries in the region was also discussed at IMTC WORLD in an afternoon round table on Nov. 10, moderated by Daniel Trias.

Recent News about De-Risking, Financial Exclusion and Bank Discontinuance

De-RiskingBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr October 6, 2016

On November 11th, as part of IMTC WORLD 2016 we will be having a “DE-RISKING & BANK DISCONTINUANCE FORUM” to discuss the impact of this practice in the Money Transfer, Remittance and Payment Industry as well as the U.S. depository institutions termination of correspondent accounts of foreign financial institutions (FFIs) as well as some US Banks forcing local bank account closures by their corresponding banks in many countries in the world.

Commonwealth’s De-Risking Meeting in London

De-RiskingBy Hugo Cuevas-Mohr August 13, 2016

As we informed all our special Friday Newsletter to subscribers in the UK, the Commonwealth Secretariat invited the International Money Transfer & Payments Industry to the “Disconnecting from Global Finance: A Conversation on De-Risking” meeting that was programmed this past Thursday, August 10th at Marlborough House in London. The meeting was called following the release of the Commonwealth’s report “Disconnecting from Global Finance: The Impact of AML/CFT Regulations in Commonwealth Developing Countries”. Passions ran high at the meeting as money transfer businesses and smaller financial institutions complained about the “detrimental” decline in international banking for many businesses and individuals.