Over millennia, mankind has used hard cash in various forms ranging from shells to gold coins and paper. More recently, cash has become unpopular in political circles, as it effectively restricts states’ power to tax (explicitly or via negative interest rates) or to survey and potentially...

This paper provides a strategic overview of key issues relating to the remittance industry in the South Asia region. The paper builds on recent research on remittances that prominently features the South Asia region. Rather than duplicate that work, this study focuses only on the region's...

South Asia has experienced a sharp increase in remittances since the mid-1990s. According to recent World Bank research, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are all among the world's top 20 receivers of remittances, with estimated receipts of US$3.2 billion, US$17.4 million,US$4.0...

To facilitate law enforcement and regulatory actions in the relatively unfamiliar field of IVTS, three items are produced in this report. First, an analysis of difficulties likely to be encountered in investigations of hawala transactions in contrast with anticipated difficulties in...

This is the first systematic study into so-called "underground banking" networks. The research was funded by the Ministry of Justice of The Netherlands. It is the study that coined the term "Informal value transfer systems". The main goals of the study were to provide a policy-useful analysis of...