Lanka ranks high in informal cash transfers
25 May 2013 03:12 am
Sri Lanka has ranked high among informal money transfers in the south Asian region last year, a new Gallup study revealed.
Nearly 800 million South Asians and Indonesians, which equals to 60% of the adult population in the South Asian region and Indonesia, sent or received a payment or remittance last year. The majority of the South Asian and Indonesian respondents did so informally, with 512 million people sending or receiving cash in person or sending it informally in some other way.
Remittances or payments could have been domestic or international; sent to friends or family, a school, or other institutions; or received from the government, a nongovernment employer, or from the sale of crops, produce, or livestock. Sri Lanka and Indonesia had the highest number of respondents reporting such payment or remittance activity with 84% and 83% respectively, in the 12 months before the survey. Those in Afghanistan were the least likely to report these types of transactions, with 46% responding that they had either received or made a money-based transaction.
Of those surveyed, 3% reported sending or receiving remittances from friends or family based internationally. In contrast, those in South Asia and Indonesia were nearly six times more likely to report sending, receiving, or bringing in a domestic money transfer involving friends or family in the 12 months before the survey.
About three in 10 South Asian and Indonesian respondents (32%) made at least one payment to a school, company, or other institution, making this type of payment the most common across all transaction types surveyed. The majority of these school/company/institution transactions were cash only (84%) in nature, and Sri Lankans (60%) and Indians (57%) led in conducting these types of transactions.
Four per cent of all people who took the survey reported being cheated or losing money when either sending or receiving it, domestically or internationally, in the 12 months before the survey.