Financial Services Advisor

Manuel Orozco, member of the Financial Services Advisor board and director of the Migration, Remittances and Development Program at the Inter-American Dialogue: “The growth in remittances to Mexico is associated with four interconnected factors. First, the length of time in the United States among Mexicans has increased, as many are not returning to their homeland. In turn, the number of remittance senders increases, thus increasing the volume. We have found that more migrants are sending remittances in states that represent an important source of remittances growth. An Inter-American Dialogue study found that while less than 2 percent of remittance senders arrived in 2016 and 2017, the percentage of all Mexican migrants sending money increased from 50 percent in 2006 to 65 percent in 2017. Second, the frequency and principal remitted has been increasing over the past three years and is largely due to increasing family obligations back home (as they stay longer in the United States, their obligations to relatives in Mexico increase). They are also sending more out of fear of being deported, and thus tend to send at least 20 percent more than what they used to. Third, there has been…”