IMTC Conferences

MEXICAN MONEY TRANSFER MARKET:
   this page in pdf for view & download

Mexicans in the US and Canada:
Since the 1980 census, the Mexican immigrant population in the US has continued to outsize other immigrant groups. In 2008, there were 11.4 million Mexican immigrants, accounting for 30.1 % of all US immigrants and more than 10 % of all Mexicans (Total Mexican Population of 107 Million).
While the total number of new immigrants seems to be decreasing, Mexican immigrants, which have settled in "traditional" destination states like California and Texas (50% of them are in this 2 states), have been moving East to other states. Significant populations have moved to the South, Georgia and North Carolina; to the Midwest, Nebraska and Ohio and even Canada has seen an increase.
The Los Angeles metropolitan area has the largest number of Mexican born (16% of all Mexican immigrants), followed by Chicago (6.1%); Dallas-Fort Worth(5.5%) and Houston (5.2 %).
Almost half of the new Mexican Immigrants in 2008 came from Chiapas (14.2 %), Guanajuato (8.6 %), Oaxaca (7.2 %), Sonora (6.9 %) and Michoacán (6.5 %).  View and Download this document on Mexicans in the US from MPI.

According to the Canadian Embassy in Mexico, there are between 40,000 and 50,000 Mexican-born Canadians living legally and permanently in Canada today, while 10,000 come each year to study, and some 200,000 visit every year as tourists.
Since 2009, Mexican nationals require a visa to travel to Canada. It was a reaction from the Canadian Government to the large number of refugee claims from Mexicans that had tripled since 2005.
In 1995, just 482 Mexicans became permanent residents of Canada, and by 2004, that number had more than tripled, to 1,648. he number of Mexican temporary workers have also more than doubled. And, probably for the first time, Canada is now facing a growing number of unauthorized immigrants, mostly mexicans.
Note: Colleagues from the MT industry in Canada commented that they think that the number of mexicans have ïncreased four to five times in the last 5 years.

Money Transfers to Mexico

Mexico is the third largest receiver of MTs after India (55 B) and China (51B). While the volume grows for this two Asian countries, the volume for Mexico reached its highest point in 2008 (see chart). Remittances are the second largest source of foreign currency for Mexico after oil, 2.5% of GDP.

Mexico received a total of $21.27 billion in remittances in 2010, very close to the 2009 level. The average remittance has hold steady at around $300 during the last months of 2010. Analysts at Ixe estimate that remittances will grow by 5.77 percent in 2011, with a final total of some $22.5 billion, thanks to the recovery of the labor market in the US (see news article)
Few analysts venture to especulate on how the Mexican and US controls on US currency in Mexico, to combat money laundering, and the limits and new controls by US MT Institutions on remittances to Mexico, have impacted the volume of formal remittances, but it is beleived to be minimal, since, more than 96% of remittances are paid in Mexican Pesos with very few transactions are above $700-800 dollars. (See Fincen's June 2010 Advisory).
 View and Download this short document entitled "Remittances to Mexico" from The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (2010).
Also check Manuel Orozco's work on Remittances to Mexico and other Latin American countries here: Remittances & Development

MT leaders in Mexico:
The two largest foreign-owned Bnaks in Mexico, BBVA Bancomer (Spain) and Banamex (Citigroup—US) compete for the leading position in the local banking sector with BBVA Bancomer controlling 23.2% of banking assets at end-2009, followed by Banamex, 22.6%., followed by Banco Santander (Spain),12.1%, while HSBC (UK), controls 8.2%.(article).
The fourth-largest bank in Mexico and the largest domestically held bank, Banorte accounts for 11.1% of the total banking market. Banorte has tried to acquire a larger share of the remittances market with the purchase of 70% of US-based Inter National Bank in 2006 and UniTeller, a Licensed US Money Transmitter company. Another domestically owned Bank, Banco Azteca (1.3% of the banking market) is part of Grupo Elektra, a large retail chain that has been one of the major remittance payers for Western Union for years.
It is important to know that Bancomer established in 1995 a subsidiary of Bancomer Financial Holdings in the US, BTS, Bancomer Transfer Services, based in Houston, TX. BTS launched several stand-alone branches in Southern California, then expanded efforts to Northern California, Texas, Oregon and New York. But the success of BTS has been the service it provides to small, medium and large MT Insitutions, not only for payments to Mexico but to a large number of other countries. Some sources believe that Bancomer has more than 50% of the MT market share in Mexico.
Other MT institutions worth mentioning are BANSEFI (Red de la Gente) that provides payments to rural areas such as Envios Confianza..

Cost of MT to Mexico:
The World Bank Group has been publishing the cost of a MT in a number of corridors. An average US 200 MT from the US to Mexico costs: (Table has not been updated yet - 02/14/2011)

The Institutions surveyed in the US were: - Visit Us to Mexico Price Data for detailed information.

The Institutions surveyed in Canada were: - Visit Canada to Mexico Price Data for detailed information.