The results obtained by a survey2 on remittances carried out recently also show that, the banking system still remains less preferable by Albanian emigrants who send money to their family members or relatives - only 15.2 percent of emigrants show interest for using banking system. Some of the reasons influencing migrants’ decision for (not) choosing banks to transfer their money were: -  Geographical proximity of Albania and Greece (Albanians residing in Greece and Italy travel to Albania frequently, on average 2 to 3 times a year, transferring money themselves). -  Insufficiency of emigrants’ families to the banking system. Empirical measures have shown that while a considerable number of emigrants have become familiar with banking in the resident country (74.4 percent of them hold their savings in the banks of their country of residence), the corresponding families in Albania appear to be less familiar with the banking system in Albania. Only 45.3% of Albanian families hold a banking account. At this point, some policy implications are evident: improving population awareness of banking services, encouraging expansion of banking throughout the country and facilitating possibilities of money transfers. BoA, is in process of designing a public communication strategy that aims at brining the public closer to banking products and services, including transfers. The flow of remittances may also raise if the fiscal burden of financial transfers is reduced. Enhancing competition by increasing the number of participants in the market would also push transfer commissions down.
For example, if you look at my preferred measure of underlying inflation, called trimmed-mean inflation—which removes the most volatile price movements—it’s been running at 2 percent. This measure of inflation hasn’t shown any signs of trending up or down. That said, I will be watching developments closely for signs of a persistent shift away from our 2 percent long-run goal. As I mentioned, the economy started the year with a lot of momentum. But there are reasons to believe that the surge in growth won’t persist through the remainder of the year. Taking into account of all the indicators we follow, I anticipate a step-down of economic growth, from the 3 percent growth recorded last year to a still-solid pace of about 2-1/4 percent in 2019. 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  This is good news. It’s above the economy’s underlying potential, but not unsustainably so. Healthy economic growth should in turn fuel solid job gains, higher wages for workers, and some further declines in unemployment. The strong economy and labor market should also support inflation returning to 2 percent, the Federal Reserve’s long-run goal. The Global Picture In addition to the positive data we’ve been getting for the U.S., we’ve also seen encouraging signs that risks from global economic and financial markets are abating. Last year there were worries that the global growth slowdown centered in China and Europe would spill over onto our shores. This was one factor contributing to a more downbeat assessment of U.S. growth and the stock market sell-off.