Banks aim to help immigrants send money home

Immigrants send money to support their families in their home land. Until now they paid high fees and often were cheated. The big banks are starting to get in on the action. They're doing it because it is good business, but it will also help the immigrants, at least the money will get to their families and the fees will be reasonable. DP

Each year, $100 billion is sent from the US to relatives living abroad. Wire-transfer outfits have gained, but now banks may do it better.
By Diana Ransom | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor: NEW YORK – Every month, José Valencia sends between $300 and $400 to his sisters and other relatives in Ecuador from the Delgado Travel office in Queens, N.Y.

"We never cease to do that," says Mr. Valencia, who heads the New York Association for New Americans, an immigrant advocacy group. "We are always going to send money home."

Delgado Travel, a family-owned business with 35 locations in New York, New Jersey, and Illinois, serves between 8,000 and 11,000 customers a day. But Valencia is considering switching to Citibank. "They are the biggest bank in the whole world," he says. "With a lot of these small companies, you don't know whether the money is going to get there. So I would deal with a big bank because I know that [it is] going to be there."

Besides reputation, loosening regulations and lower fees are changing the way immigrants transfer money. The result may hurt longtime operations like Delgado Travel, while bringing immigrants into the mainstream financial fold.

Citibank, HSBC, Bank of America, and other banks are seeking a piece of the $100 billion immigrants send home each year. Advanced electronic systems and widespread distribution networks - a product of mergers with banks in other countries - have enabled banks in the United States to provide money transfers for lower fees.
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