A recent report by the World Bank provides an example from East Africa where, in 2021, the fee for sending 200 dollars in remittances from Tanzania to neighboring Uganda was 23 percent for a Ugandan migrant.1 I cannot begin to imagine giving up nearly a quarter of my income every month just to send that money home to my family.
But barriers like these are the reality for many people. And it is not just the cost of cross-border payments. These type of payments are often also slow and not transparent – and then there’s the fact that they are not fully accessible for all. The FSB stance is that the payments barriers should be reduced – for both individuals and companies.