Objective 20: Promote faster, safer and cheaper transfer of remittances and foster financial inclusion of migrants

The agreement between the Doha Bank and the PT Bank Central Asia Tbk, Indonesia enables Indonesian migrant workers to use the web-based remittances services.

The Banco Solidario provides small loans at very competitive rates for migrants departing to Spain in order to cover the costs of their flight, the first days in Spain and family support until the migrant receives his/her first pay.

Remittances for development council serves as a consultative programme to discuss issues concerned about remittances as well as an advisory and policy-recommending bodies for channeling remittances for development. Another focus for the Philippines government is to minimize barriers to asset transfers, through creating conducive legislative and institutional framework that facilitate engagement. For instance, the Philippines has introduced flexible residence visa arrangements to facilitate access to the Philippines or former Philippines citizens.

The National Policy on Labour Migration addresses the following three broad objectives:

• Promotion of good governance of labour migration;
• Protection of migrant workers and promotion of their welfare and that of families left behind;
• Optimization of the benefits of labour migration on development while mitigating its adverse impact

Specific objectives

Governance

The Colombo Process is a Regional Consultative Process on the management of overseas employment and contractual labour for countries of origins in Asia. According to best estimates, over 2.5 million Asian workers leave their countries every year under contract to work abroad. A large proportion of workers from South and Southeast Asia head for the Gulf States to perform various types of service, trade and construction jobs, while others move to North America, Europe and Asian countries.

This website, part of the Government of Mexico CONDUSEF (National Commission for the Protection and Defence of Users of Financial Services) allows remittance senders to compare different fees across operators.

The "Directo a México" program enables remitters to send money from a bank account in the USA to any bank account in Mexico, offering a safer, cheaper and more efficient remittance channel than traditional money transfer operators. The sender pays all fees; there are no deductions or fees for the beneficiary in Mexico. The payment is initiated in USD and converted into Mexican pesos using a highly competitive foreign exchange rate. Consumers using this program pay one of the lowest fees on the market, at less than USD 5 per transaction regardless of amount sent.

The Foreign Exchange Act of 2006 promotes a better tracking of remittance inflows and the increasing usage of formal channels for remittances. It also provides for: the exchange of foreign currency, for international payment transactions and foreign exchange transfers; for the regulation of foreign exchange business and provides for related matters.

The National Remittances Credit Registry (NRCR) is a project housed by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning in Ghana with the following objectives:

1) To assist the Government of Ghana to diversify the country's investments for remitting Diaspora; thus, enhancing the service delivery and development outcomes;

2) To design and operate a centralized database compiling national remittances flow, and;

IOM, jointly with the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE), implemented a project which aimed to contribute to the GoN’s initiatives to generate employment opportunities for returnee migrants and remittance receiving households (RRHHs), through the engagement of the private sector in Nepal. The project funded by IOM Development Fund was a joint initiative of the MoLE and IOM following discussions with government, returnee migrant organizations and the private sector.