Financial Innovations in Remittances

On February 25, 2010, the AIM Center for Development Management (CDM) hosted a seminar entitled,
”Financial Innovations: Can they boost the development impact of remittances?” held at the First Philippine Holdings Case Room of AIM. This seminar was the third of a series of “Development at Work” talk.

Professor Dean Yang, Ford School of Public Policy and the Department of Economics, discussed emerging insights from his extensive research among migrant workers from source countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Kenya, and the Philippines.

The talk emphasized the important role of public policies in facilitating the inflow of remittances and promoting their development impact. It also shared the impact of financial innovations on household decision-making, labor market activities, as well as saving and investment behaviors. Such insights helped financial institutions redesign modes of remittance transfer and introduce new financial products.