Closing the data gap on remittances flows

Remittances are estimated to amount to over half a trillion dollars worldwide. Costs can range from as low as 1.5% to as high as 25%. Given that a large share of remittances are sent to rural areas, high costs can impact a recipient’s purchasing power. As such, data gaps need to be addressed to increase cost transparency and competition among remittance service providers since information such as global market prices and agent locations are traditionally opaque.

Africa-Europe Remittance Flows

Our latest remittances project is done in partnership with the European Union and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) through the Financing Facilities for Remittances program (FFR). Using alternative data sources, we will build a model to map remittance flows between Europe and Africa while closing the pricing data gap of existing remittance service providers.