Pursuant to World Bank data, almost 1.7 billion euros were transferred to Serbia in 2015 through remittances, and at least another 1.2 billion euros through unofficial channels. This amounts to an impressive sum of 2.9 billion euros, or 8-9% of Serbian GDP.
With the development of different types of international money transfer, we could mistakenly think that the classic transfer of (cash) money via Western Union or similar money transfer companies such as Ria, Unistream or MoneyGram has come to an end.
Users opt for this method of money transfer primarily because of its speed and simplicity. Namely, transfers are made within a few minutes, and neither the sender nor the recipient have to open accounts with the financial institution where they send, i.e., withdraw cash.
The price of these advantages is relatively high transfer costs. They are around 7.60% at the global level, 7.51% at the regional level and around 9.2% in Serbia and even up to 22% if the payment is made in the local currency.
A small comparative analysis of two agent systems in Serbia - MoneyGram and Western Union transfers on the example of sending 100 EUR or 100 CHF, will give you a closer insight into the costs that users can count on:
MoneyGram is less famous than Western Union, but it also has an impressive global network. In Serbia, MoneyGram works through Greek (Voban, Piraeus, Alpha and Eurobank) and Russian banks (Sberbank). Western Union operates through 2 main agents (EKI Transfer and Tenfore), which together have around 500 agents in Serbia.
The expansion of the agent network of existing money transfer companies in Serbia, as well as the arrival of new ones, are a sure indication that this business has a future in these areas.