U.S. Banks Hope Money Transfers Attract Hispanics
Mexican immigrants living in the United States have less expensive ways to send money to relatives in Mexico, using private and government money-transfer programs aimed at encouraging immigrants to join the U.S. banking system.</br></br>Bank of America Corp. last week announced the launch of SafeSend, a free money-transfer service between the bank's branches in the United States and several Mexican financial institutions.</br></br>The Federal Reserve and the Central Bank of Mexico are promoting a joint program called Directo a Mexico, under which participating U.S. banks charge low fees to send money to Mexico by using the central banks as intermediaries.</br></br>People sending money to Mexico pay as much as $15 per transaction -- known as a remittance -- to companies such as First Data Corp.'s Western Union Financial Services Inc. and MoneyGram International Inc. Those companies handle most of the estimated $20 billion a year sent between the United States and Mexico. Banks account for only about 5 percent of that amount.</br></br>"The end goal is to get a banking relationship started," said Diane Wagner, a Bank of America spokeswoman.