Remittances – the financial service that keeps communities alive

The livelihoods of one billion people around the world depend on affordable and secure money transfers from their loved ones working abroad, known as international remittances. In 2021, migrant workers sent an estimated USD 605 billion to their families, a staggering 8.6 percent up from the previous year. Having pushed a vast amount of informal money flows to the digital space, the pandemic revealed the real face of remittances along with their ever-growing importance. When linked to other financial services, such as loans or insurance, remittances can have a profound development impact in emerging economies and increase their resilience to future crises.

As Posts are reinventing themselves by expanding their portfolio in digital financial services, entering the remittances market can turn them into powerful agents of financial inclusion. UPU spoke to Pedro de Vasconcelos, Manager of the Financing Facility for Remittances at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and originator of the International Day of Family Remittances (16 June), about how Posts, through inclusive finance, can bring financial literacy to rural areas to change the lives of millions of people, one at a time.