[Reader-list] Migration, Money Flow and Western Union

[sadan at sarai.net]

Dear Patrice,
Thanks for your post. Yes you are right in poiting out the role of     \
informalchannels of money transfer. However, I am not sure whether 'Havala'
can help us to understand migration and money transfer in a scenario     \
involving small players, less well to do migrants i.e. workers or middle
level professionals. This is I think where Western Union aims at. You are 
right pointing out that there is a lack of good material on the practice of
havala. I remember reading a narrative of one such encounter in Delhi     \
where some one posted his personal experience of sending money using this  
network.
Havala at times refer to a whole range of practice of money transfer     \
and this blanket use of the term at times doesnot permit us to know the
intricacies involved with specific practices otherwise referred as     \
Havala.
For example, we know very little about domestic money transfer, ways     \
in which migrant workers from north Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand send money    
back to their homes. In Surat, Gujarat there are operators (people from   \
this migrant community of workers) who are known as 'Tappawalla'. They   
work very smoothly to send money to Orissa and enjoy the faith of this
community. I am told that the emergence of these 'Tappawallas' owes a lot
to the mushrooming private banks (non-state players i.e. HSBC, CITY Bank, 
ICICI etc), ATM booths and mobile phone culture.
sadan.





On 12:52 pm 11/23/07 "Patrice Riemens" <patrice at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
> As is quite usual with the NYT, this otherwise very interesting
> article glosses over an important piece of information within the
> issue of money transfers, vital for migrant labourers the world over:
> how Western Union profited, if it was not directly instrumental to,
> the relentless attacks against, and the partial demise of, informal
> money transfer systems and structures (known in S.Asia, and even
> quite generally, as _Havala_) migrants were using these en masse
> before 911. Havala, which is/ was as fast and reliable as Western
> Union, but considerably cheaper, was demonised and criminalised after
> 911 as a conduit for terrorist money, and, in 'advanced' economies at
> last, largely disbanded. Very little has been written (afaik) about
> this.
>
> >  November 22, 2007
> >  Border Crossings
> >  Western Union Empire Moves Migrant Cash Home
> >  By JASON DePARLE
> >
> >  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/world/22western.html?
> >  _r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all
> >
> >  WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 — To glimpse how migration is changing
> >  the world, consider Western Union, a fixture of American lore that
> >  went bankrupt selling telegrams at the dawn of the Internet age
> >  but now earns nearly $1 billion a year helping poor migrants
> >  across the globe send money home.
> >
>
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