Somalis rely on money transfers. Barclays, don't sever this lifeline

My father's family depended on cash stuffed in a rucksack. Without transfers, today's Somalis face the same fate
Somali mothers and their babies
About £100m is sent from Britain to Somalia every year, and some 40% of the population in the region is said to be reliant on remittances. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP

Sixty years ago Somali sailors like my father, who lived in Britain, used a simple system to return some of their earnings to family members in east Africa: one of them would stuff all his money into his rucksack, get on a ship and hand-deliver each share to the designated families. There were no records or regulations, just trust and honour; and if any was lost, stolen or given to the wrong person, restitution was a slow, painful process.

Now, if I want to send money to my family in Somaliland for their hospital or university fees, I get on a bus and go to one of the many Somali money-transfer companies that have sprouted up across Britain. I give my name, the name of the recipient, and their telephone number. Later that day, I receive a text message confirming receipt of the amount.

For a country that has no postal service, few paved roads and no banking system, the money-transfer companies are as efficient as it gets. It was through them that we rebuilt our family home in the early 1990s after the war had reduced it to a roofless ruin, and through them that my extended family was able to return from the refugee camps in Ethiopia and re-establish its life. They reach every village and town. So it's no surprise that Barclays' decision to close the bank accounts of most of the money-transfer companies it trades with in Britain has been described as a "death sentence". And it's a sentence that will be carried out within days.

The London conference on Somalia, which took place only last year, was meant to show Britain's positive engagement with the region – so the decision to blithely extinguish much of the economic activity there is blackly comic. Barclays is the last major bank involved in the money-transfer sector, and has a 75% market share after HSBC, RBS and others pulled out last year.

About £100m is sent from Britain to Somalia every year, and some 40% of the population in the region is said to be reliant on remittances – though from what I have seen this seems a very conservative estimate. Even the buying power of the middle classes depends on regular top-ups from family abroad. And the transfer is not only in one direction; many British Somalis have sold their old homes to help establish new lives in the UK, and have businesses that straddle both countries.

Barclays' proposal is a response to the $1.9bn fine imposed on HSBC for failing to implement money-laundering controls in Mexico. That may be understandable, but what is not is Barclays' decision to continue working with MoneyGram despite its money-laundering violation in the US, at the same time as the bank is shutting down Somali money-transfer companies that have never faced any charges. These Somali companies are already subjected to a level of scrutiny that most others would buckle under, and MoneyGram and Western Union have generally avoided the whole region rather than deal with the difficulty of operating there. Barclays' actions seem wilful and unfair.

Already 100 money-transfer companies have had their accounts closed; the others have been given an extension to the end of September. So within weeks an economic tsunami will hit the Horn of Africa – creating exactly the kind of upheaval the London conference was intended to consign to the past, making Somalia yet again a place of hopelessness and anarchy.

Though 46 MPs, mostly those with affected constituents, have written to Barclays to ask for more time to find a solution and Rushanara Ali MP has delivered a petition with thousands of signatures to Downing Street, this seems to have gone unheeded. The Foreign Office's initial statement was that this was a commercial decision alone and there was nothing it could do; but since last year's conference the government has repeatedly stated how important remittances and private investment will be in stabilising the region. The Department for International Development and the Treasury must do more to make sure that their investment in the Horn of Africa is not undone in one fell swoop.

For British Somalis, it is hard to ignore the late-night call that comes over a strained international line, pleading for the most basic of necessities. In the next few weeks, if Barclays doesn't help find a solution, we will return to the sailors' system, with undocumented suitcases of cash sent from here to Somalia. And aside from the personal hardship suffered by so many, it would mean no tax paid to the Treasury, no record of where the money is going, and a complete failure of Britain to meet its international and legal objectives.