Managing The $600B Money Transfer Gorilla

By Pete Rizzo (@pete_rizzo_) 

From retailers to telecos to payments innovators, there’s no shortage of new entrants looking to capture a share of the money transfer market, and for good reason: Over the last 20 years, it has surged from $50 billion business to a more than $600 billion behemouth.

Not that long ago, the space was dominated by traditional, agent-based companies. Not surprisingly, given the need to successfully navigate the requirement to operate as a global brand but with a local presence, only the big guys could survive. But, Hugo Cuevas-Mohr, senior director of a global conference that organizes this industry, the IMTC, says the market is evolving to interest some of the world’s most recognizable brands – Google, Amazon and PayPal – all of whom are looking to gain market share.

Cuevas-Mohr has seen the industry evolve firsthand at IMTC’s events. IMTC has been coordinating the conferences since 2010, the newest of which is scheduled to run from November 4 to November 7 in Miami Beach, Florida.

Armed with this expertise, Cuevas-Mohr and IMTC have released a new infographic that charts the explosive growth the industry has seen around the globe in just the last year. 

To break down this new resource, PYMNTS.com spoke with Cuevas-Mohr in an exclusive interview that shed light into the massive change taking place in the market. The result was that the IMTC director revealed three key pieces of advice for those looking to influence the space.

PYMNTS.com: How can money transfer service providers, banks and non-banks capitalize on the market? (Jump to 1:45)

Hugo Cuevas-Mohr: My advice is threefold. First, diversify, explore other options. Cash-to-cash transfers will be with us for a long time, but there is a definite shift to digital, and soon mobile. They’re slow to market, but they’re coming strong.

The second is partner, you cannot do it alone. I tell companies all the time, there are companies with specialities that you cannot come up with on their own, or that will take too much money and expertise to develop. There are a lot of white-label products out there, and outsourcing is a possibility.

Third, the money transfer business is not as easy as it may appear from the outside. I always say analyze and study before moving forward. In the U.S., for example, you need to licensed in 48 states to be able to provide the service in every state.

Money transfer is still seen by some banks as too risky. Even though there are huge compliance and controls in the industry, there are regulatory gray areas with regards to some new business models evolving.

For more on how Mohr sees the money transfer business evolving in the U.S., Asia-Pacific and Latin America, and to reveal “the big change” he is expecting to take place over the next three-to-five years, listen to the full discussion on IMTC’s new infographic below.

*If you have trouble with the audio player above, click here.

Hugo Cuevas-Mohr is President and CEO of Mohr World Consulting and a Senior Director at IMTC

Hugo has been a consultant since 2001 for a number of companies and financial institutions in the Money Trnasfer Industry in Latin America, United States and Europe and has been a speaker at many local and international Conferences. 

After developing the Latin American Program of the Annual Convention of Money Transmitters in Miami in 2009, MWC became a partner in IMTC, International Money Transfer Conferences, for the development of Croos-Border P2P (Person-to-Person) Payment Conferences and Seminars. IMTC MIAMI is the largest Money Transfer Conference in the world and meets in October, every year since 2006. IMTC WEST, a conference in Los Angeles targetting the growing Asian Markets meets in the Spring, IMTC BRASIL that launched its first conference in February 13-15, 2012 and IMTC MEXICO that was held for the first time in 2010. Several other projects are on the way with partners in several regions, to develop new conferences, seminars and workshops.