Publication Type
Magazine Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
11-2015
Abstract
A Pan-Asian Mobile Remittance Platform might just be the next big disruption in global remittances. One out of every 28 people lives in a country that they were not born in. As migrants, they are estimated by The World Bank to send home US$636 billion in 2017, with three-quarters remitted to developing countries. These remittances form a significant percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of many of these developing countries. Given their magnitude and contribution to national economies, even a small reduction in remittance cost adds billions to these local economies. Mobile-to-mobile cross border remittances have recently shown that not only can the remittance costs be significantly brought down, but the money can also be delivered virtually in the hands of the beneficiary. We propose that with six of the top 10 remittance receiving countries of the world located in Asia, it is time to set up a Pan-Asian Mobile Remittance Platform that would enable migrants to remit money home at low cost using their mobile phones.
Keywords
Migrant workers, remittances, mobile phones, Asia
Discipline
Asian Studies | Finance | International Economics
Research Areas
Macroeconomics
Publication
Asian Management Insights
Volume
2
Issue
2
First Page
22
Last Page
28
ISSN
2315-4284
Publisher
Singapore Management University
Citation
TAN Swee Liang; Venkataramanan, S. N.; and KISHORA, Anil.
Remittances without borders. (2015). Asian Management Insights. 2, (2), 22-28.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/1894
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
http://cmp.smu.edu.sg/ami/