The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Money transmission activity has rebounded by an estimated 10 percent for 2025 to-date, it was revealed yesterday, following double-digit percentage declines in both volume and value during 2024.

Sean Smith, one of Sun Cash’s principals, told Tribune Business his firm and the wider industry are still “trying to figure out” what caused last year’s drop-off particularly since the record 11.22m tourist arrivals should have driven an uptick in money transmission payments and remittances.

Explaining that increased economic activity typically sparks greater payment volumes, with expatriate workers remitting more to their home countries due to the increased amount of money in circulation, he confirmed that Sun Cash’s experience matched industry-wide data generated by the Central Bank.

The banking regulator, in a recent industry update, revealed that the number of money transmission payments recorded in 2024 fell in both volume and value for incoming and outbound transactions. Total volume for all transactions fell by almost 100,000, dropping from 578,004 in 2023 to 481,135, representing a 16.8 percent year-over-year decrease.

Meanwhile, the total value of money transmission payments declined by $21m year-over-year, dropping from $202.785m in 2023 to $181.735m last year. This was equivalent to a 10.4 percent decrease, with the gap between outgoing payments handled by money transmission businesses and the lesser sum incoming narrowing slightly from near $58m in 2023 to close to $52m in 2024.

Outgoing payments dropped by 15.8 percent in volume, falling from 366,588 to 308,616 in 20224, representing a 15.8 percent drop. In value terms, outgoing payments fell by 10.2 percent year-over-year, declining to $116.771m from $130.007m in 2023.

As for incoming payments, these declined in volume from 211,416 to 172,519, representing an 18.4 percent year-over-year decline, while from a value perspective they dropped by 10.8 percent to $64.954m from $72.778m. 

“It did coincide with our experience,” Mr Smith said of the Central Bank data, “where it was kind of strange for is because obviously we’re one of Western Union’s representatives here and work directly with Western Union. They’ve been trying to understand from the marketing end why it dropped.

“But I could say that, in 2025, it’s starting to come to a peak. It’s moving higher than it was last year. If I had to just guess, because I don’t have the numbers in front of me, I would probably say it’s 8-12 percent higher. I’m sure it’s a little more than 8 percent. Ten percent would be a safe number.”

Mr Smith explained that last year’s decline in payments handled by money transmission businesses was surprising given the record tourism arrivals numbers given that his sector’s business volumes are typically tied to economic activity.

“I think it’s [2025] certainly going to be a better year, but we’re trying to figure out why the numbers last year were lower,” he added. “The money transmission business has kind of moved along with tourism. The amount of money goes up because tourist dollars are coming in.

“There’s more money coming in, and for residents sending money back home they have access to more money in the economy, especially with the increase in tourism. There’s always been this correlation.” Collectively, though, the five money transmission providers licensed by the Central Bank saw their their own total assets rise 26 percent year-over-year, increasing from $27m in 2023 to $34m at year-end 2024.

Keith Davies, Kanoo’s chief executive, told Tribune Business that the Central Bank data did not match the company’s 2024 experience although he conceded it only accounts for a small portion of the money transmission market. He added that Kanoo expects an “upward trend” in digital payments to take-off in 2025.

“We would actually have seen a bit of an uptick,” Mr Davies said of 2024, “because we were able to deliver on a number of new product offerings. I would say it was fairly consistent across the board for us. 

“For us I think we saw a little bit of an uptick because we provide essential services to the Department of Social Services [to facilitate welfare payments]. That’s been something that’s been fairly consistent and we don’t control that at all. We are a a service provider agent.

“We have additional offerings. Our enabled campus offering where we go into the schools and have a digital environment, like Queen’s College. We’ve seen a significant increase as that’s taken hold. For us, it’s been fairly consistent. I will say as persons become more used to using and trusting digital services, I will say we would probably see a trend going upwards in 2025,” he added,

“In terms of our market and what we’ve been doing, from a payment interface perspective I’ve seen an increase. We have a solution where persons have got an API to allow themselves to receive payments digitally in a number of forms. That has been taking off.”

Mr Davies reiterated that digital payments, and storing funds on a phone or wrist-band, offer far greater security than carrying huge sums of cash in a wallet. “I’m very uncomfortable carrying $300 in my wallet,” he added. “I’m not going to do it.

“I carry $10,000 on my phone because I don’t have to worry about it being stolen. It’s happening now; no later than the weekend. I was at a Farmer’s Market and someone was accepting digital payments. They got most of my funds, while the others only got what was in my wallet. Because of that transaction, three or four other people signed up on the spot.

“We continue to grow, we continue to provide more services, and the expectation is that will continue throughout this year as well.”