MANILA-Vice President Jejomar C. Binay has expressed
“deep concern” over the recent moves of United States banks to restrict the use
of their facilities for international money transfers in response to regulatory
pressure from the US government.
“In particular, a plan to increase remittance fees
would adversely impact on the millions of Filipinos in the United States who
regularly send money to their families in the Philippines,” Binay said in a
letter to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Amando Tetangco, Jr.
Binay is the Presidential Adviser on Overseas
Filipino Workers’ Concerns.
The Vice President expressed optimism the BSP
will look for solutions to mitigate the impact of the recent developments.
“I take note of the efforts of the BSP to
address this development and I am optimistic that you will make the needed
representations and take the needed steps to mitigate the effects of such
policies on our kababayans in the US,” he said.
According to the New York Times, Bank of
America, JP Morgan Chase, and Citigroup have scrapped programs that allowed
migrant workers to send money back to their families at a reduced cost, in
response to increased regulation.
The increased regulation is part of the US
government’s efforts to curb money laundering activities after a series of money-laundering
scandals.
In 2012, HSBC was accused of failing to
monitor more than $670 billion in wire transfers and more than $9.4 billion in
purchases of US currency from HSBC Mexico.
HSBC admitted to laundering money for drug
cartels and agreed to pay a $1.9 billion settlement to avoid lawsuit.
The US has been the biggest source of OFW
remittances in recent years, with almost $10 billion remitted to the country in
2013 alone.
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