Nigeria to earn $22bn in diaspora remittances in 2017 says World Bank

Global remittances from the diaspora will grow this year by about five per cent to around $450 billion with Nigeria receiving about $22bn to occupy the fifth position among the league of recipient nations, the World Bank said Tuesday.
Nigerians sending this money home will pay an estimated $2bn in remittance fees, according to the report.
India should get a total of $65bn to occupy the top spot among nations attracting remittances from its diaspora to family back home, according to the data released in Washington.
Among major remittance recipients, China will come second, with $61bn, Philippines follows with $33bn and then Mexico with a large diaspora population in the United states will come fourth with $31bn.
Global remittances to low and middle-income countries are expected to recover this year, after two consecutive years of decline, says the World Bank’s migration and development brief.
The bank estimates that remittances from developing countries are expected to witness a lift of 4.8%. However, global remittances, which include flows to high income countries are projected to grow by 3.9% to $596bn.
The recovery in remittance flows is driven by relatively stronger growth in the European Union, Russian Federation, and the United States.
As a result, those regions likely to see the strongest growth in remittance flows this year are sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
In the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, fiscal tightening, due to low oil prices, and policies discouraging recruitment of foreign workers, will dampen remittance flows to East and South Asia.
In 2018, remittances to low and middle-income countries are expected to rise modestly by 3.5% to $466bn, the World Bank reports said. Overall global remittances are projected to rise by 3.4% to $616bn next year.
Average cost of sending $200 home remained stagnant at 7.2% in the third quarter of 2017, said the bank’s study.
This was significantly higher than the sustainable development goal (SDG) target of 3%. Sub-Saharan Africa, with an average cost of 9.1%, remains the highest in region in the world.
The report noted that two major factors which contributed to high cost, are exclusive partnerships between national post office systems and any single money transfer operator (MTO), which stifles market competition and allows the MTO to raise remittance fees, as well as de-risking by commercial banks, as they close bank accounts of MTOs, in order to cope with the high regulatory burden aimed at reducing money laundering and financial crime.