An Interesting Alternative To Traditional Remittances

For consumers who want to wire money to some far corner of the world, not much has changed since the days of the Old West. Trying to send a small amount of money from US to a relative in India or Mexico probably means queuing at a money-transfer agent, providing documents and other proof of identity and paying a hefty fee, probably reaching 10% (or more) of the value of the remittance. Similar hurdles and potential fees are observed on the receiving end. According to the World Bank the cross-border remittance market was worth total of $483 billion back in 2011. Majority of those were small amounts sent regularly by migrants to their families back home. As the number of migrants kept increasing, so did the market opportunity for remittances - about 8% annually in recent years.

It is easy to spot th ...