MEXICO CITY -- U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin and Mexican banking officials launched a new program on Jan. 7 aimed at helping rural Mexicans obtain broader access to the billions of dollars in remittances sent home each year by relatives in the United States.
According to an Associated Press report, "The People's Network" program will link BANSEFI, a Mexican federal savings bank, with five Mexican credit unions and savings and loans institutions, to deliver financial services -- including remittances -- to poor, rural Mexicans who rely heavily on money from the north. According to the AP, participating banks will charge low fees for remittances to encourage Mexican residents to open accounts, hoping that they will save more of the money -- and invest it in houses, small businesses and other long-term development projects. The network, which is expected to begin operating in about three months, will allow clients who have an account with any one of the financial institutions to withdraw their money from all of the banks' 1,000 branches and ATMs. Other credit unions and savings and loans are expected to join the network and expand the number of accessible branches to 3,000. Currently, about 90 percent of remittances sent to Mexico from the U.S. -- an estimated $10 billion a year -- is spent on consumer goods, said BANSEFI General Director Javier Gavito in the AP report. The goal of the network's banks is to manage at least 5 percent of remittances, Gavito said. Marin, a Mexican-American who migrated to the United States as a young girl, has been involved in joint U.S.-Mexican efforts aimed at reducing the costs of sending money from the United States and at seeing the remittances invested in long-term community projects.
