Remittances

The Philippine Development Plan (2011–2016) explicitly noted the need to promote financial inclusion and facilitate remittances domestically and from abroad. 

The Government of Lebanon holds annual conferences for diaspora focused on investment opportunities and incentives in the country.

At the same time, the government of Lebanon holds conferences abroad targeting the Lebanese diaspora on various topics, to provide and talk about investment opportunities in Lebanon. The most recent one was held in France and focused on Energy.

The Government of Japan has put in place the Payment Services Act to encourage customers to use new service providers with low commission fees.

Italian authorities have been working on further enhancing the supply of basic banking products for migrants. Since 2011, the National Observatory for the Financial Inclusion of Migrants provides ongoing structured analyses and monitors migrants’ financial inclusion. 

Indonesia is working on a new business model for remittance transfers that will focus on cash to account or account to account approaches. This will seek to boost financial services access for women and vulnerable persons.

A pilot on remittances based on non-cash platforms is expected to be followed by banks, telecommunication companies and post offices. This pilot will aim to harmonize relevant regulations with AML/CFT standards. 

Under the National Financial Inclusion Strategy, many public-sector banks offer accounts that charge no fees for remittances. 

To streamline the remittance arrangement under the Speed Remittance Procedure and make remittances more cost-effective, the Government of India has removed the mandated requirement of maintenance of collateral or cash deposits by the Exchange Houses with whom the banks have entered into the Rupee Drawing Arrangement. 

The German price comparison portal ‘www.GeldtransFAIR.de’, which obtained World Bank certification in 2014, is currently being redesigned to make it more user-friendly. The new website (including a mobile version) is to be launched in 2018.

Since the G20 Summit of 2015, France has adopted a National Plan on Remittances which seeks to: (i) facilitate remittances by reducing their costs; (ii) maximizing the value of remittances by orientating them towards sustainable and growth-generating projects; (iii) improve its knowledge of remittances fluxes to develop a better understanding of migrants’ needs. The improvement of migrants’ access to financial products and services was already one of the axes of a law adopted in 2014.

In its 2015-2017 National Remittance Plan, the Government of Canada focused on increasing transparency and consumer protection for Canadian remitters; to this end, Canada has undertaken a national survey to better understand remittances providers’ needs and has been discussing with financial institutions how to improve remittance market competitiveness. 

The Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) constantly monitors the foreign exchange market and undertaking studies with the objective of fine-tuning regulation to simplify FX procedures, increase competitiveness and lower costs.