De-risking is a huge issue for MSBs and MTOs. Banks have been closing accounts, left, right and center, ridding themselves of all MSB / MTO related clients.
I’ve written extensively on this:
- Can’t find MSB Friendly Banks? Go ahead, scream. No one is listening.
- The Sandstorm that is blanketing the operations of money transfer companies.
Remittance companies are crying foul. One one hand they are being regulated to the hilt and on the other end, ironically, banks don’t want their business because they are too risky. FinCEN even put out a statement for this purpose: FinCEN Statement on Providing Banking Services to Money Services Businesses.
The World Bank is stepping in. They are now conducting a survey, directly from all the MTOs and MSBs involved in the remittance space, to document how de-risking is affecting remittances.
The blog post by World Bank can be accessed here. You will have to send an email out to World Bank and they will provide you with a specific link for your MTO / MSB for purposes of documenting your opinion.
Please share this blog post so that other MTOs &/or MSBs can partake in the survey.