There is increasing awareness of the importance of these remittances due to the fact that, unlike other financial flows, remittances mostly go directly to households, either for investment or consumption smoothing. Therefore, they have important poverty alleviation benefits. The critical questions are therefore how much of this money is coming into our economies and through what channels?
In Kenya, for instance, estimates of remittances captured only from formal channels that include commercial banks and other authorized international remittances service providers, have averaged USD118.2 million per month so far in 2014, from USD107.5 million per month in 2013. This places remittances as an important source of foreign exchange.