The Banker magazine are media partners with Global Consumer Money Transfers Conference, 2006

The Banker magazine published by the Financial Times has agreed to become media partner with the Global Consumer Money Transfers Conference on Monday October 30th at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Knightsbridge, London.

The Banker a leading publication of the Financial Times has taken up the cause of the international remittance and money transfer market.

Their Editor in Chief Stephen Timewell has written a 4-page spread on the money transfer market in the September issue. His interest began after he chaired a panel discussion on remittances at the first global money transfer conference in October 2005 at the Institute of Directors.

As he explains:”From being viewed as the rather uninteresting transfer of low-value payments by migrant workers, the remittance market has captured the attention of the world’s largest banks.”

In outlining the changes in the money transfer sector, he said,”the past few years have witnessed a radical restructuring of the traditional remittance industry where the entire process of money transfer is being redefined and reinvented by a host of banks, non-banks and new technologies.”

He referred to Dan Schatt of Celnet who said,” that there is an unprecedented opportunity for new players to disrupt the ‘existing landscape.’

In short new technologies are creating a revolution in money transfers with the rise of mobile phones and the internet.
As he quoted Kathleen Tyson-Quah, ceo of specialist payment and settlement systems, Granularity, “The challenge for a commercial viable remittance solution is deploying on a global scale a cross-currency multi-bank, multi-channel solution that meets all FATF (Financial Action Task Force) money-laundering requirements within a cost margin comparable to credit card processing costs.

“Given the small payment values and wide diversity and dispersion of the target clientele, that challenge does not appeal much to established players, so any solution is likely to depend on disruptive technology.”

As Steve Timewell concluded the remittance industry is in the midst of wholesale change, and in such a diverse and fragmented market the likely winners are those with fresh models and fresh technology that are able to genuinely bring high-tech and high-touch together.

Says Lady Olga Maitland, CEO of IAMTN: ”We are very conscious of the technological revolution which will be a subject we will be looking into in some depth at the conference.”

Contact Information

Lady Olga Maitland

CEO

IAMTN

Contact via E-mail