E c o n o m i c &
Social Affairs
ST/ESA/2002/DP/26
DESA Discussion Paper No. 26
Informal Money Transfer Systems:
Opportunities and Challenges
for Development Finance
Leonides Buencamino and
Sergei Gorbunov
November 2002
United Nations
DESA Discussion Paper Series
DESA Discussion Papers are preliminary
documents circulated in a limited number of copies
and posted on the DESA website
http://www.un.org/papers.htm to stimulate
discussion and critical comment. This paper has
not been formally edited and the designation and
terminology used do not imply the expression of
any opinion whatsoever on the part of the United
Nations Secretariat. Citations should refer to a
“Discussion Paper of the United Nations
Department of Economic and Social Affairs.”
Leonides Buencamino and
Sergei Gorbunov
Leonides Buencamino and Sergei Gorbunov
are Economic Affairs Officers in the Finance
and Development Branch, Development Policy
Analysis Division, Department of Economic
and Social Affairs. An earlier version of the
paper was presented to the panel on “Savings
management in developing countries”, one of
the sessions at the Conference on “Enhancing
private capital flows to developing countries in
the new international context”, organized by
the Commonwealth Business Council,
Commonwealth Secretariat and World Bank in
London on 3-4 July 2002. The views and
interpretations in this paper are those of the
authors and do not necessarily represent the
views of the United Nations. Comments
should be addressed to the authors at the
United Nations, Room DC2-2128/2110,
New York, NY 10017 (e-mail:
buencamino@un.org, gorbunov@un.org).
Authorized for distribution by Ian Kinniburgh,
Director
Development Policy Analysis Division
Department of Economic and Social Affairs
United Nations
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to their colleagues in
DESA, especially Barry Herman, Simon
Cunningham, Carl Gray, Dominika Halka, Keiji
Inoue, Ana Lima, Mark Scher and Krishnan
Sharma, for their helpful comments. The authors
also would like to thank Profess