Courtesy of Payments news, a new study on the international remittance market, with some surprising findings.

Visa International, Latin America and Caribbean Region, has conducted a study that “revealed the banking potential of remittance recipients, as well as their interest in establishing more productive relationships with financial institutions. The remittance market reached US$52 billion in 2005, marking a 15 percent increase over the previous year.”

The surprise is in the propensity of this group to want bank relationships; something that flies in the face of the traditional view, that as a group, their is a natural distrust of banks.

56 percent of interviewees expressed an interest in establishing some type of formal relationship within the financial system. Similarly, 70 percent showed a favorable attitude toward banks.

15 percent of beneficiaries save or invest the money they receive because remittances increase their income by 50 percent.

tags: remittances, unbanked