The Cross-border Money Transfer Experience: Why taxis and buses are still preferred to banks

This study explicitly set out to challenge the commonly accepted paradigm that it is safer and more efficient to make use of formal remittance channels (banks and money transfer operators). The focus note highlights the authors’ experience as “mystery shoppers”, presents pricing data collected from banks, the Post Office and SWIFT, highlights various process flows and seeks to document South Africa’s performance from the customer’s perspective against the 2007 Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems / World Bank General Principles for International Remittance Services.