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Wednesday, 8 February 2017

If the government have ever calculated the economic cost of migrants/refugees

By M Baska

I wonder if the government have ever calculated the economic cost of migrants/refugees and benifit cheats remitting funds from the UK to other countries which varies per destination country.Migrants in the UK send money home using several channels. These include family and friends returning home, money transfers operators (MTOs) such as Western Union and MoneyGram, banks and informal hawala brokers The hawala method of transferring money is informal and it is very difficult to trace most of these flows using official government records.It is very difficult to collect data on the cost of remitting on the informal remittance market. However, the World Bank database on the cost of sending money through formal channels suggests that remitting from the UK using Western Union and MoneyGram is more expensive for those sending money to Poland in comparison with other major migrant sending countries to the UK. Sending GBP 120 to Poland costs GBP 10.33 using Western Union, while the same amount sent to India only costs GBP 8.50, this estimates is for November 2015.
However, differences between the costs of remitting to the five obvious destinations.
Estimated amounts of remittances sent from the UK in 2014 vary widely from £1.5 billion to £16.5 billion.
However, all main data sources agree that the UK is one of the top-10 remittances sending countries in the world.The UK accounts for 15% of remittances to Pakistan.
The cost of remitting from the UK varies per destination country and transfer method. The major money transfer operators (e.g. Western Union, MoneyGram) typically charge from 7 to 11% of the total amount remitted.
There is little information on the characteristics of remitters in the UK, including characteristics such as income levels and welfare programme participation. Some studies suggest that there are ethnic differences in remittance behaviour in the UK.