Remittances have become a help for many Venezuelans who are in the country, given the serious economic crisis that the nation is suffering.
However, many people opted for the informal market to obtain "a better price" in bolivars of the foreign currency and thus help their relatives.
Given this, the president of Zoom Casa de Cambio and former president of the Association of Exchange Houses of Venezuela, César Atencio, pointed out in an exclusive interview with Finanzas Digital that 90% of remittances are going through the informal market .
" It is not entering through the exchange houses or the banks , which are the exchange operators authorized by the exchange agreement that is in force," he added.
Likewise, he pointed out that there is a consensus that at least between US $ 1,200 and US $ 1,400 million are entering a year in family remittances : “they are talking that at least US $ 120 million are entering a month, which is a number that does not leave to be interesting. That money, by not entering through formal channels, is not feeding the exchange tables of private banks.
He explained that they conducted a study in conjunction with Western Union for 6 months in countries such as Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, the United States and Canada, where Venezuelans who are in those places send remittances to Venezuela . European territories such as Italy, Spain and Portugal are also included.
He highlighted that there were several findings, among which are that “people did not think that traditional companies such as Western Union and MoneyGram were operating to and from Venezuela. The exchange rate used for remittances was much lower than the exchange rate that could be obtained in the parallel market. All the clientele we had disappeared, because the client, upon receiving 30%, 40% or 50% less, stopped using the formal route . In 5 or 6 years, the exchange rate was not competitive for clients outside of Venezuela.
«The pattern of family remittances in Venezuela changed until 2012-2013, we had many migrants living in Venezuela, especially the Colombian, Chinese, and Ecuadorian colony who lived here and sent their relatives. They were clients who worked in Venezuela and sent their families, "he said.
- Challenges they are meeting -
He added that Venezuelans became “a new customer who did not know Western Union and when he traveled it was not an option, because the exchange rate did not suit him. The first challenge is to educate all these people .
Atencio emphasized that one of the problems they attacked was eliminating the tax in Venezuela and in many countries in Latin America, “Western Union decided to lower the price. Today, we are cheaper than any of the informal and illegal options.
He specified that the second variable they saw was the issue of going to an office to collect the operation. All this pandemic issue, lack of public transportation made the client not want to go to the office. «We develop systems that today we can serve the customer in three ways: in person, through a ticket office only in flexible weeks. The second, via the call center and the third, via the website, which is the one that people are using the most , where they sign up for the portal, upload a photo of the identity card and the person and do the operation virtually » .
The next point has to do with immediacy, he said. Family remittances are designed “so that people receive the money and go to spend it, in general, it is attached to a specific need. With the disappearance of cash in Venezuela, the only option left to pay people was via bank transfer, with the limitations it had in Venezuela. If it was from the same bank, hopefully you could have the transfer overnight. And if it was from another bank, he had to wait for the next day in the afternoon . We solved that, with C2P, via mobile payment and now we are doing all operations via mobile payment ».
The last modality refers to the fact that the client can receive the remittance in cash in foreign currency and a part in bolivars, through mobile payment. "We launched that three weeks ago and it has been super successful," he highlighted.
- Reception and sending of remittances -
César Atenció specified to Finanzas Digital that they are seeing a month-on-month growth of more than 40% in remittances entering Venezuela, while a 30% month-on-month growth has had remittances leaving Venezuela .
"More than 90% of payment transactions per minute, that means that you take your mobile payment or take your cash in foreign currency or a combination of both," he said.
He stated that "dollarization is not related" in the country to the sending of remittances from the Caribbean nation: "what has changed is that there are many Venezuelans outside the country and not all of them have done well. We are seeing clients who are helping (their relatives) , especially (those who are) in Colombia due to unemployment. We have seen an important growth towards Colombia of family remittances ».
The president of Zoom Casa de Cambio asserted that in the last 5 years, “more money has entered Venezuela than it has left and it has been a constant. We have never been able to sell, in any month, all the currencies of family remittances to clients so that they can send it to other relatives outside of Venezuela.
“It is striking because one might think that there are not enough dollars in exchange houses to send family remittances to people. We are more buyers of cash dollars than sellers of cash, "he emphasized.
He reported that Colombia is the country that has 54% of international shipments, followed by Peru, Ecuador and Argentina with around 8% each. " Of the countries that receive money, Spain is still the largest with 16%, Italy with 16%, Mexico and Ecuador," he stressed.
He commented that Venezuela is receiving family remittances from 129 countries around the world and “ we are sending from here to 85 countries. More than 68% of customers repeat the use of the service in a period of 6 months and we have 32% that do not repeat ".
«The issue of payment in cash has been a success. In flexible weeks more than half of the operations, people are taking the mixed payment: cash in currencies and mobile payment. More than half of the operations we are doing virtually, even in flexible weeks. In non-contact weeks, more than 90% (of the purchase and sale operations) we are doing via mobile payment , " he said.
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