Date: Wednesday 11 September 2013
Venue: KICC – Aberdares Room
Time: 10am – 12pm
Entry: STRICTLY Prior Registration
Every year, Somali migrants around the world send approximately $1.3 billion to friends and families at home, dwarfing humanitarian aid to Somalia. Individual transfers are usually less than $300, and often as little as $35. Families depend on the money for basic costs such as food, water, education and healthcare, and to cope with new crises.
A recent report by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation shows that up to 40 percent of families receive some form of remittance, and that the money is integral to their survival. However, banks and regulators are in danger of inadvertently undermining this financial lifeline and driving it underground, as interpretation of UK and USA money laundering and counter terrorism legislation becomes tighter. Banks in the West are closing down the accounts of money transfer operators, thereby threatening to cut the lifeline to hundreds of thousands of Somali families.
This meeting will examine the impact of the decision by UK and US Banks to discontinue their services to the Somali remittance companies and explore challenges raised by the international remittance sector.
