PRESENTATION TUNISIA 2009
Dear participants of this conference and attending Authorities:
In the first place, I would like to thank all those who made this event possible,
the FIDA authorities, and Dr. Manuel Orozco, who insisted on our attendance to
this event to take the opportunity to speak to you all and to the institutions you
represent.
I am here on behalf of More Money Transfers, a firm specialized in remittance
payment networks and different transactional modalities in alternative channels.
MORE MONEY TRANSFERS was born from the concern of people connected to the
financial system and to its various retail expressions who saw, in the
technological development dedicated to the activity, an opportunity of business
and of generating better and more affordable financial products for those who
were never properly served by the traditional system, and not because they
didn’t have the need, but rather for their impossibility to make use of these
products. I come from the Banking sector, and I have technological formation.
However, 2002 crisis in Uruguay forced me to retrain and, fortunately, to get
acquainted with the microfinance transactional world that compels us to be
creative day after day in order to solve countless challenges.
This presentation was drafted in collaboration with Sergio Perez, the firm’s CEO,
who is sitting among you, with whom I also shared this process of business
development and a model that has given us a leading role in Latin America in
terms of Remittances.
OUTLINE OF MORE MONEY TRANSFERS
Our development in the world of remittances started in 2003. Yet, some time
before that, we started participating in the local stock and exchange market in
Uruguay. The shareholders had developed a payment and collection network
based on Bild Payment activities, which had added financial products from
different players of the system, including Banks, Cooperatives, Microfinance
Institutions, service companies – both private and public -, health and private
education centres, sale of show tickets, ATMs, telephony, etc. This alternative
channel was a natural disperser for remittances which, as a result of the regional
early 2000 crisis, were growing exponentially; there was no one to meet that
demand, aside from the main players in the field such as Western Union and
Moneygram, with the resulting outrageous rates charged for the service.
In those years, companies alternative to the leading brands used informal
channels or channels whose main activity was other than the payment of
remittances as a business opportunity, and took it as a complement to their
business, rather than with the professionalism required by the volume of the
existing market. In the early years of this millennium, lists of orders to be paid
still arrived via fax or in a daily mail, at the most. Besides the lack of security and
transparency, or even the illegality of this modus operandi, there was also the
issue of the high cost and deficient service rendered.
We understood that the best ally for the transactional business development and
success was technology. That was our commitment, which led to the success of
MORE MONEY TRANSFERS.
We carried out an in-house development capable of meeting the needs of the
business, with the simplicity required for it to be available to individuals having
the characteristics of computer users with basic knowledge in the field.
Technology poses a daily challenge. Today, the opportunities it brings are beyond
our capacity to imagine, design and develop businesses.
We need to be aware of the fact that the world is democratized, technologically
speaking. The logical consequence is the inclusion, in terms of financial services,
of more and more people in the poor regions. But we also need to understand
that there are still a lot of people that have no access to them, mostly in this
continent.
Consequently, international entities and private entrepreneurs need to work

together. In the world of the small and medium financial institutions there is a
large amount of achievements in the technological field which would be extremely
useful, generating business opportunities and solutions for people and
organizations that lack the possibility of acquiring or developing these tools.
Entities concerned about chains of payments could be of help in this area, by
determining the need and reporting the different existing technological
possibilities. Large investments are not necessarily involved. The history of
Microfinance is full of examples of lots of money thrown in large technological
projects which have ended in great failures. There are other ways of bringing
solutions to sectors in need, and we are an example of it.
We developed technology but not to be on the hunt for a sale of soft; on the
contrary, we intend to use the solution open doors and work together with
microfinance and development institutions to help them professionalize
alternative transaction networks. Remittance payers, phone booths, retail chains
of different characteristics and concepts, might - with the appropriate technology,
the required logistics and the indispensable financial education - turn into
financial service centers for those more deprived from the system. This would
bring a drastic drop in transactional costs and would facilitate the dissemination
in these networks of products within the reach of this sector of the population.
Microcredits, microinsurances, remittances, sale of telephony services, savings,
payment of services and business exchange would provide a better quality of life
and transparency conditions to these people's existence.
Of course, technology is not the only thing that counts to achieve this new
alternative finance scenario. We must also work together in the regulatory
framework. There is currently a huge gap between the regulations existing in the
developed world and the almost total lack of this framework in some countries.
Having a regulation to be shared by regions and continents – as it would be
unrealistic to think of a universal one – should be a goal in itself. This framework
necessarily needs to be designed in collaboration with authorities and players of
the system.
In this regard, we also have the significant advantage that nowadays technology
guarantees the possibility of establishing as many controls and securities as
required by regulatory entities. This is quite relevant, as the formalization of any
activity leads to a drop in the relevant costs and the transparency we are all
seeking.
We are not here today to make a mere business introduction of MORE MONEY
TRANSFERS. We believe that our contribution is to share with you our vision
about the way companies and international and governmental organizations must
follow together so that the remedy to the lack of financial solutions of those in
greatest need may also become a sound business opportunity for private
enterprises.
Technological solutions are at hand. The rest is up to our imagination and our
commitment.
Thank you.
TUNISIA, OCTOBER 22, 2009
Rafael Ubilla, Business Manager
Sergio Perez Ruiz, CEO
More Money Transfers.