MoneyGram – Liberia remittance key facts 2012/2013

MoneyGram, an international money transfer company started operations in Liberia in 2002 with only four (4) agent partners: International Bank (IB), First International Bank (FIB), United Bank for Development in Africa (UBA) and Global Bank.

However, other banks such as Afriland First Bank joined the MoneyGram team in 2011 just before the exclusivity removal. But before this time Liberia has been excluded since 2002 until in 2011/2012.

With the end of exclusivity MoneyGram expanded services to the Liberian Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI), Ecobank and Guarantee Trust (GT Bank). Today its network has grown from barely 20 locations in 2008 to 84 as at may 2013.

Since MoneyGram operations in Liberia the total remittance into Liberia in 2012 was US378 million, a growth of 18% over the previous year. According to the report Diaspora remittance accounts for approximately a third of the country’s GDP. (2011 and 2012)

Liberia is the second highest recipient of migrant remittance as a share of GDP and that remittance flow from the United States corridor, since about 48% of the Liberian migrants reside in the US, is estimated at about US$330 million.    

However, in another part of the report, top remittance send countries are the United States with US$52 billion dollars, Saudi Arabia with US$28 billion dollars, the Russian Federation with US$23 billion dollars, Germany with US$16 billion dollars and France with US$15 billion dollars.

For top remittance receive countries, India received US$69 billion dollars, China received US$60 billion dollars, Philippines received US$24 billion dollars, Mexico received US$23 billion dollars and Nigeria received US$21 billion dollars the report concludes.