ABSTRACT
Remittances refer to person-to-person transfers of relatively small amounts of money from one country to another; 232 million migrants were involved in remittance transactions in 2016 for a total of $575 billion, including $429 billion to developing countries. It is more than three times the official development assistance and more than foreign direct investments to almost every single developing country. While the reduction of remittance costs is critical in relation to the migrant premium, current fees remain far above official targets. The chapter suggests that this failure is partly connected with the securitization of migrant remittances in the name of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism. The chapter insists on the necessity to tackle the unintended effects of such a securitization process that currently leads to a lose-lose relationship between international efforts against crime and international efforts against poverty and inequalities.
