Remittances, Payments, and Money Transfers: Behaviors of South Asians and Indonesians

This paper offers an in-depth look at remittance and payment behaviors of people in South Asia and Indonesia, based on survey results from six South Asian nations and Indonesia. It also assesses the size of the potential market for payments and remittance services and sheds light on various policy questions. Further, the paper provides data that is relevant to donor and public sector initiatives as well as  to private market players interested in developing better payment services. It covers the following sections:

• Market overview of the number of people making payments in each country included in the survey;
• Domestic and international remittances with a focus on the choice of channel, amount of money sent, and other preferences of senders and receivers;
• Analysis of money sent to schools, companies, or other institutions in the surveyed countries;
• Analysis of money received from local, state, or national governments, military, other national institutions, employers, and from the sale of primary products;
• Various challenges involved with a focus on overcharging, cheating, and loss of money during transaction;
• Use of mobile phones and the internet for sending remittances and making payments;
• Comparison of the behavior in South Asian nations and Indonesia with Sub-Saharan African nations.