First international conference on money transfers praised by Lord Lamont of Lerwick, former Chancellor of Exchequer 2000-2003

Lord Lamont of Lerwick, chairman of the conference on Global Money Transfers in winding up a highly successful two day conference said, “This has been a landmark event bringing in people from all over the world working to one end, the management of the transfer of trillions of dollars from one country to another.

“ I congratulate the leading Russian money transfer network Unistream for creating this conference. Without them there would never have been the frank and open discussions that took place.

“There was a common agreement that with increasing trade worldwide both in developed emerging nations there is increasing pressure to ensure a money transfer system that is speedy, efficient, convenient to access, cost effective and above all transparent.

“The conference demonstrated for the first time that we should be talking positively about money transfers which are growing at a phenomenal rate bearing in mind the rapid increase in international trade and also equally rapid movement of migrants . It is estimated that there are 190m people now living in countries in which they were not born.

“This movement of population has created a huge market in remittances which has a powerful impact on national economies, especially in the emerging nations.

“We also touched on the issue of money laundering a factor which gives concern to everyone. However it was felt that a message has to be sent to Governments about the dangers of imposing ineffective and burdensome regulations on money transfer networks. There is the risk they put the compliant minded institutions out of business and in the process create an informal underground market over which there is no control or accountability at all.“

“I welcome the commitment by the Conference to the establishment of the International Association of Money Transfer Networks and will be proud to assist them in whatever way I can. This is much needed and will give full recognition to a market which until now has been much neglected.”

The conference was attended by leading banks and money transfer networks. The speakers included the Alexei Savatugin ( Ministry of Finance of Russian Federation), the British Economic Secretary to the Treasury Ivan Lewis, the Algerian Minister for Financial Reform Karim Djoudi.

Putting the case for regulation was William J Fox, the US Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network a the Department of the Treasury. In his remarks he said he noted the dangers of imposing too much strain on money transfer networks, and hoped to ensure a reasonable balance in protecting the public from terrorist funding yet keeping alive the money transfer networks upon whom millions rely.

Contact Information

Lady Olga Maitland

Conference director

GCMT2005

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