NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

Migrant workers around the world will soon be able to send money back home by efficient and reliable electronic transfers, eliminating the paper and manual work now involved with traditional postal money orders, under a joint project announced today by the United Nations postal agency.
?There is a strong trend for overseas workers to send part of their earnings home to their families, but the market response to this issue has so far been inadequate,? Universal Postal Union (UPU) Director-General Edouard Dayan told a high-level forum in The Hague, Netherlands, of his agency?s new link with Eurogiro, whose membership girdles the globe.
The two organizations have developed a gateway connecting their networks for the transmission of the Tele Money Order. Selected postal administrations will soon start testing the new service, with a view to a full roll out by the end of May.
The service is open to all but migrants are expected to be the major beneficiaries. According to the World Bank, migrant workers, about 3 per cent of the world population, sent remittances worth $110 billion in 2004, 52 per cent more than in 2001.
Story found here.