fifteen minutes for us you know to set it on the first vote only members who are action be allowed to vote i ask unanimous consent that we allow members who missed the first vote only to be recorded is there objection hearing on the curb now call well this is the first vote these are people actually being recorded on the first vote right but if it's going to appear in the record over here and then page later all these folks will be recorded as part of the as well somebody just resign file there is a separate use we will have the appropriate time period for filing additional views and the committee is now a good afternoon and the subcommittee thank you you're very kind to close the door for us thank you good afternoon the subcommittee on domestic international monetary policy trade and technology of the committee of financial services will come to order today's hearing is entitled the role of remittances and leveraging sustain development in latin america and the caribbean in this hearing the subcommittee will examine the increasing sums of remittances flowing into latin america in the caribbean from the u s and around the world and explore how these remittances can be leveraged by individuals community banks credit unions international institutions government and n g o s and use for long term development opportunities in the region for the committee rules we've agreed to limit opening statements to five minutes per side but with no objection all members of submit written statements for the record we are expecting floor vote around three at which time we'll probably have to take a short recess so i want to move as quickly as possible to our witness testimony and with that i now recognize myself five minutes for an opening statement this hearing has been a long time coming it is the first hearing on the issue of remittances in the house financial services committee since two thousand and three cents and remittances in latin america have increased from thirty eight billion to a staggering sixty billion dollars and this is the first hearing that i am aware of to focus local soley on the issue of remittances for sustainable development i believe the focus of this hearing is appropriate because of the sheer volume of remittances flowing to latin america in the caribbean especially when compared to visual aid and direct investment this will be the first in a series of hearings on remittances later this spring our subcommittee will hold another hearing to focus on the sending side of remittances and the regulatory issues that are associated with the process but their distinguished panel is here to discuss the use of remittances by recipients for the developmental purposes as i said remittances said to latin america and the caribbean from all parts of the world estimated to be at more than sixty billion dollars in two zero zero six this amount surpasses both the fischel development assistance and foreign direct investment to the region seventy five percent or forty five billion of these remittances sent to the region originated in the united states total remittances now represent five times the amount of all the show development assistance to latin america and the caribbean the timing and importance of this hearing is punctuated by president bush's eminent six day trip to latin america coinciding with this trip the president's calling for increased trade with the region and a promise of more aid earlier this week he stated that since he took office the president of the united states has doubled the amount of assistance to latin america to a total of one point six billion dollars last year one point six billion versus forty five billion which is more likely to spur sustainable development the reality is we are behind the curve when it comes to leveraging remittances per se nable economic development and i believe that the remittances issue should be part of the dialogue when it comes to trade issues and development in latin america in the caribbean the majority of the room and says are sent to improve the economic wellbeing  in the recipient nation study suggests that about eighty percent of remittances are used to pay for everyday needs of the recipient that's believes as much as twenty percent of saving of twenty percent savings and investment for latin america in two thousand and six twenty percent represents twenty billion dollars still far more than the total of the chalet to the region the challenge remains is how to leverage remittances sent to let an american the caribbean and in the way that will help develop the economies of the recipient nation we have a top notch panel which i will be introducing shortly and looking forward to a vibrant discussion but before i close i would like to take a look would like to talk a little bit about the tradition of there's a long history in tradition of sending money to friends and loved ones in other countries a tradition that is not unique to the u s migrant workers contributed heavily to their home countries g b g d p in spain italy and  the debate on this issue are also not new my staff on the book published an eight hundred fifty six that dedicated entire chapter to objecting to riminton says which group was the author's anger directed the irish it seems the hard as you pointed out this is an issue that's been around for a long time but it's come to the forefront more recently because there's a lot of concern about immigration and where there are immigrants are legal or illegal i believe that when markets are free and immigrants are legal this is a non issue it's an economic transaction is done voluntarily and it should benefit everybody concerned today conditions are a little bit different and people are more concerned about the illegality of some of our immigrants there's a incentive for illegal immigrants or immigrants to bring their families to this country if they're not able to receive us in the anyways if people are concerned about illegal immigration they really ought to encourage remittances instead of encouraging the immigrants to bring their families in just as other incentives encourage families to come in if they are guaranteed and guaranteed welfare benefits it makes it much easier to say bring bring the families along rather than saying somebody is here legally and working they should be permitted to send their money to to whomever or to wherever they may want the other concern i have for those who do worry about this and i think rightfully so is the the idea that once you start to regulate or put on controls you can't do it on just those you don't want to participate you have to put the regulations on everybody it's sort of like gun control and as a conservative  we don't we want to control illegality use of guns we i don't really want to take away the legal use of guns but if we want to control certain individuals from certain sending remittances to some countries we really have to regulate everybody in everybody has to be regulated and him everybody has to make these reports so in an effort for those to tinker with these laws and make changes i think i would urge caution that we never take away the freedom of choice and yes i'm going to introduce the witnesses while they take care of the technical issues we have an excellent panel of witnesses today all of whom are experts in the areas of remittances or micro finance our first witness is mr sergio bendixen president  dr elizabeth wright senior vice president of action international where she focuses on remittances and micro finance issues and our fourth witness is mr segui being no founder and  of the international migrant development fund finally we have mr bruce namer president and c e o of techno serve a company that focuses on micro finance and development around the world and i see we have the the  north from the united states from europe to japan to latin america because the sheer volume of the money that goes down south but i am now beginning to speak about remittances as maybe the most important economic engine for latin america in this new scent century because there's now clear evidence that the remittances that i received in latin america are allowing people to have access to mortgages to have access to small business loans to have access to  investment products that will allow for the economic development of latin america i speak about this subject with a great deal of confidence because their american development bank has given me the privilege of studying the remittance flows from the the u s japan europe to latin america in surveys done in approximately twenty three countries we have interviewed more than sixty thousand people that either send or receive remittances and i'm going to share with  you very glad to see the powerpoint presentation working some of the basic facts and figures that we have learned about over the last few years first of all let me remind i don't see any to remind you mr chairman but for those that may not be  familiar with the process of remittances that we're talking about a process that involves the poorest of the poor as you can see from this graphic seventy five percent of the latin america let's let the american immigrants that send remittances home on a regular basis live on less than thirty thousand dollars a year they are the working poor and many of them live on the edge of the poverty line and as you can the from this graphic the percentage of latin american immigrants that send money home has increased over the last five years in a survey conducted nationally in two thousand and one fifty nine percent of latin american adults were sending money home that number is now up to seventy three percent of the number is not important but definitely the trend is up remittances will continue to increase over the next few years the reasons why we can discuss that another meeting because there are many but there is no doubt that remittances are increasing there are now twelve point six million latin american immigrants sending money home on a regular basis they are sending money every month at approximately three hundred dollars per remittance for a total of thirty six hundred dollars per year if you do the math we're talking about then you refer to it forty five billion dollars sent from the united states to lead america there in two thousand and six and if you add the approximately ten billion sent from europe mostly spain portugal italy france the latin america and the three or four billion from japan and one or two billion from canada you have sixty billion dollars arriving in latin america during the past year that's two hundred million dollars every day or every week or every month of the year truly a river of gold let's see where that sixty billion dollars gets put in context of what else what kind of other money arrives in latin america sixty billion remittances when you total up the amount of money in foreign direct investment the amount of money that wal mart that toyota we've been hearing lately about all the money that chinese have been putting into latin america that's up to only forty five billion and when you look at the money that is  put into latin america as official development assistance that's the world bank the idea be at the i m f the money that we go as part of our aid program we're talking about six billion so in comparison as you mention your opening statement there is no doubt that remittances are now the largest source of capital after of course exports that can benefit latin america to economically develop and there is another great advantage to rym it says that not everybody understands this money does not go to the government this money does not go to the big financial institutions this money does not go to business interests the the remittances are mechanism to redistribute wealth they go directly to the people as you can see in this graphic from our study in mexico thirty percent of the money received in mexico goes to the poor another fifty seven percent that yellow on the blue  bars go to people that are that are working mexicans and thirteen percent go to the middle class this is money that goes directly into people's pockets and all that gives them the freedom and the choice of the site what to do with it and as i mentioned at the beginning of my presentation there is now evidence clear evidence there's a lot of anecdotal evidence but there is this scientific evidence i believe that remittances are beginning to be used to leve access to investment products back in two thousand and three in a poll conducted in mexico we found that about twenty percent to riminton service were being used to open up a savings account to finance the university education of young people to get a loan to open up a small business to baby build a house or get a construction loan in a poll recently completed and done and late last year you have thirty seconds the little red light turned you know i stay here on after that that that number was up to forty percent now what do i do i recommend to the committee i think that the most important thing that i can say to you is make it as easy as positive possibly can for remittance centers to have access to a bank account the program in the f b i see pilot program in chicago for financial literacy has had great results in the city and i think if it's taken nationally if we can get more remittance recipients in centers to understand the value of being part of having a relationship with a financial institution the more that these remittances are going to allow these countries to be able to progress economically as people begin to use the money not just for consumption not just for poverty alleviation but for economic development thank  we'll make sure we have them and are filtering in chicago thank you dr o'driscoll please good afternoon and thank you very much for inviting me to share with you some of the notice we have  and if you look at another country for example haiti we just came back from haiti from presenting a study that we did the average time out scientists one hundred fifty dollars a month and a pair capita income in that country is six hundred dollars a year by migrants who have a higher propensity to say than people who do not receive remittances maybe as high as fifty percent of gross domestic savings in the whole country so remittances are not only responsible for consumption but also they really help to increase the savings ratio of the country and in turn increase their capacity to provide financing for investment in their home country all of these issues have a short term and a mid term effect in keeping ultimate a clearinghouse system called the dick to a medical system that costs sixty seven cents and it consists of making transactions from bank accounts in the united states to a bank account in mexico another  withdrawn from banking institutions jed only twenty percent of people have bank accounts and i think we need to promote an equivalent of a community reinvestment act in latin america you know way that you require that the nice year you have to work on from the u s perspective thank you thank you now we have dr rank please for five minutes ok mr chairman thank you so much for inviting us here we're always delighted to share with you the work america to provide financial services to low income people in twenty three countries we reach more than two million clients with a total portfolio of loans of two point four billion since two thousand and two we've been working on the remittances issue and trying to get a handle on it and our perspective on that issue is mainly drawn from our partner institutions who are financial institutions in latin america and therefore it's mainly on the receiving side we've worked with banks such as citi bank and nature do contribute to economic development it's difficult to leverage that in a specific way because these are small private and as sir paul said voluntary transactions so policy  legislation it's difficult to effect that contribution we believe that the best policy stance towards herman says this is one that supports the fenders and the receivers to reach to achieve their own goals and that is the effort towards which we've been working market research that we have done challenges the traditional perception of migration as a one way process today's immigrant hasn't abandoned her home country but is living a life that integrates both the united states and the country of origin this can be seen by the persistence of remittance flows which continued for much as much as a decade or more after the immigrant leaves that continued involvement is supported by communications technology transformation and the ability to move money from one country to another on the sending side exxon has identified that there is really room and says lifecycle that influences the size frequency and potential use of  remittance flows people arise and they get they get themselves established their incomes are low at the beginning then they kind of hit a middle period where their incomes are higher they're more established and they're still very closely connected to their home countries during this period which we kind of think of as a two to furious after and after they arrive in the u s is a time when they're most interested in making and having their remittance flows used for investment and asset building  as they have been in the united states longer they tend to shift perspective a bit more and make more of their investments here in the united states but they continue to send the remittances back home and the receiving end there's a different sort of perspective and i think that's captured by looking at the way that remittances are used as some of the statistics we've already seen every day needs constitute the major use superman says but there's a substantial fraction that are going for health for education and for savings and investments including real estate we're interested in helping people to have more ability to put the remittances into those that latter category but a fundamental problem is that many of the remittances receiving families don't have access to financial products and services that can allow them to make the kinds of investments are unbanked the id research puts a percentage of recipients lacking a bank account at ninety percent which is extremely high  so what we've been trying to do we've been trying to achieve two objectives one is to increase the perception of the participation of banks at both ends of the remittances industry to encourage the access offenders and especially the access of receivers to a broader array of financial services we've also been trying to develop remittance link products products that will assist the customers in meeting their long term financial goals now where we stand and trying to do that is we're first confronted with the fact that seventy percent of remittances are cash to cash and go through money transfer companies we've been working in the past couple of years on projects involving moving the flows towards bank accounts because  flows are associated with bank accounts the senders have greater have more options for how to manage the money they receive it's more secure it's often cheaper and they gain an access or broader array of financial services for example we've been working with you in ecuador to implement a bank to bank remittance fergus's now we have encountered a lot of challenges in this many of them are challenges because it's a new industry the bank staff on the sending side  but let me just say two things then one is the products that we have found that matter the most for receiving families savings account home improvement loans and insurance products we'd like to be able to offer those transnationally but find that there are many policy barriers that stand in the way and in terms of policy recommendations i would support the broad commendations manuel rosco just mentioned promoting industry structures that allow for this move movement of funds competitive setting for the industry as a whole barriers to access for the removal of the barriers of access of senders to banking services supporting the expansion of financial services to recipient families which is excellence main business and independent not for profit organization based in washington d c whose mission is to contribute to poverty reduction international communities could engage many for more fun in the form of financial system seanie was founded in two thousand and two by workshop sessions our staff has been able to have been able to gather the following data the vast majority program participants mostly women send money to pay for the health education and put expenses to pay for all debts and to pay the cost of the investments just mortgage loans and micro and small businesses in the event practices shows that this is an important factor for development so investing in education health nutrition and business development their families and children left behind  there's a third sector to provide basic financial literacy in rural and marginalized communities including communities of indigenous and african backgrounds and giving financial institutions are not for profit organizations to provide financial education in primary and secondary schools education programs should be accompanied by allowing youngsters seized from s s to open savings accounts for making programs that provide micro credit for women who are remittances including credit unions promote their services in emails and communities read an email grants to have access to credit and loans for investments and michael and small businesses and mortgage loans for example that could be paying a form of  into accounts in financial institutions abroad in question gets to commit money transfer agencies particularly the largest companies to dedicate at least one percent of their income in supporting sustainable projects particularly creating a savings chairman ranking member and members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to testify before the subcommittee to share our views on the potential for mitin says to unlock economic growth for the world's poor almost forty years ago when it connecticut entrepreneur named ed bullard created techno serve to apply private sector solutions to poverty in developing world he could not have foreseen the enormous potential power of these new capital flows as a tool for fighting poverty since then techno serve as a vault to focus on building thriving businesses and industries  catalyst for poverty reducing economic growth with a particular focus on the rural economy where seventy percent of the world's poor reside we operate in fifteen countries worldwide with a global staff of four hundred mostly with backgrounds in the private sector mr chairman remittance flows are a critical issue in relation between the u s and the developing world particularly with nations of latin america the roughly forty million latinos living in this country send a significant amount of capital to latin america roughly sixty billion dollars last year remittances are an important source of capital and now comprise more than official development assistance and foreign direct investment combined to latin america but while remittances represent enormous potential to create economic development in poor reasons of latin america this potential is not yet been realized well written says help to feed families and educate children and meet other important basic needs overall they have not been used for business start up or growth important catalyst for broad based economic development in american development bank reports that less than ten percent of those receiving remittances have a savings account only about one percent a written slows have been used to start a business this translate into significant lost opportunities to invest in productive economic activity in real thriving businesses and it is such businesses that offer the jobs and the income that have the potential to sustainably lift people out of poverty how then to harvest the potential for these flows to jumpstart private sector growth how do we answer the question posed by this subcommittee leveraging remittances or sustainable development we would submit that in order to do so we need to think about this in a more holistic sense and to think about capital intermediation here on both the supply and the demand side several factors need to be in place to enable and support the development of driving enterprises on the supply side capital is certainly critical and remittances are potentially a source of such capital provided the right investment vehicles and incentives can be put in place however capital loan is necessary but not sufficient on the demand side you need viable business opportunities an entrepreneur is in which to invest and the mere fact of capital will not guarantee that this happens this is not a case of build it and they will come and in fact what we have here is neither supply nor demand remittances are not pooled for capital investment and there are too few viable undertakings in which to invest a classic chicken egg quandary no business is little incentive for capital formation no capital formation no opportunities for business growth so what do we do well we work on both how do we facilitate the flow of remittances towards investment that is how do we work on the supply side critical to doing so is providing the right institution and policy framework for capital formation and the simplest and most effective means for doing so is encouraging and aggregating of remittances into savings accounts to this and we recommend a broadening of emphasis particularly in the micro finance field from micro loans to providing savings accounts this requires a range of new products and services and a strengthening of institutions to provide them and in fact there are a number of n g o s and others including people at this table who are currently doing just this from this base you can start to think about more systematically capturing r directly into savings accounts and perhaps something more sophisticated services for example strengthen local institutions as agents for the provision of loan guarantees from individuals or hometown associations in the u s to investments in latin america beyond this and again still on the supply side there may be other opportunities for capital formation tax incentives for the creation of pooled investment vehicles in the u s could create a means for u s based citizens of other nations to invest in businesses in their home countries their existing examples of successful funds in latin america based on remittance flows more such products need to be developed to catalyze investments for business start of growth but again availability of capital and market access alone are not enough would be investors need productive enterprises in which to invest their capital without a growing pipeline of honor's developing viable competitive businesses there's little opportunity to channel remittances away from household consumption into business investment so we must increase the focus on the demand side of the business creation equation to providing business building skills and know how information technology business support services and the facilitation of market linkages development assistance funds like those administered by usa id and a d b have an important catalytic role in providing those components supporting entrepreneurship development program bringing in private sector actors and creating market linkages and working along value chains to build international trade capacity our own experience shows that providing this program out of support for business formation and growth focused interventions  can spur dynamic new businesses and real sustainable growth as just one short example with the support of usa id and other partners techno service run business plan competitions throughout central america you know salvador in the past three years alone these competitions of help entrepreneurs create a one hundred sixty companies generating over thirty million in revenues and creating over a thousand jobs the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in the region what is needed is the catalyst to unleash and empower it development assistance channels of these types of entrepreneurship development and trade capacity building activities has a vital role to play but again this is a to say add equation get the supply and get the demand and in that context remittances play a potentially critical role thank you thank you i recognize my self for five minutes  dixon this question is for both of you with all of your combined experience on the ground in latin america in the caribbean and experience with the enter merican development bank what direction could could we give to the international development bank through legislation or otherwise that would assist the bank in encouraging the nations of latin america and the caribbean to focus on this issue and to start to harness remittances for developmental purposes mr rose but would you  cost of sending money from latin america down substantially it is now taking a leading role in making sure that government and business and financial institutions and the people themselves know that there are financial opportunities that this money can be leveraged for the for the well being of their families and of their countries and i would also make this point i think that the great thing about remittances is that the government this doesn't really need to get all that involved the process is already working beautifully i mean even though a couple of the witnesses might not agree with my figures the latest research done by the id be shows that there is now forty percent of the money sent remittances in some countries like mexico and brazil and that is available for for economic development remittance companies are beginning to remittance companies which have gone from goats to euros in my opinion in this process they used to overcharge now they're doing a great job of getting the money there quickly and getting at there safely and now they are beginning to offer mortgages small business loans access to capital i think that in a way just allow the process to continue make sure that there's a light on it so that everybody is well informed make sure that there is good there is so much money there that if we just leave it alone and allow private enterprise to do its work that it will lead to ferment of things and that america thank you will will continue to to work  i don't know who would like to respond to this question but maybe  there is a i thought that says well you know all of this money all these billions of dollars leave the united states of america and go and aren't spent here so you don't buy cars here you don't buy clothing or you don't create economic development here with the capital you don't invest and so that money is just spent away sixty billion dollars forty five billion from the united states how do you know how would you respond to  that i would say first of all of that probably sixty to seventy percent i read a figure that he said around eighty percent of the money stays here and run of the problems that we find is that immigrants are not have access to the formal financial system so they use other means to distribute their money or to use their money or to hide it in the match service so to speak and i mean the opportunities for immigrants to save here investments can be done in here as well you know a lot of immigrants are here to stay so so their dreams to build their capacity here to have a better conditions of leaving the united states sold so a very important aspect of it thank you very much dr ron paul the gentleman from texas is recognized by the minute thank you mr chairman i want to follow up on the chairman's comments about where this money goes and what good it might do or not do i was pleased to hear mr make namor emphasize the private approach to solving poverty poverty and that of course is what i've always emphasized i'm not a fan of  foreign aid i don't see foreign aid involuntary i see that as extracting funds from poor people here sometimes and sending it to governments elsewhere and i certainly bet favor market decisions over bureaucratic decisions so this idea that there are remittances that go into these countries i think is actually a good alternative to foreign aid if you're not a supporter of foreign aid and you still want to help you don't want to do anything to to interfere with this because it's really the way i see it no dark hole the the money they get the money and some of it will come back here and they will buy american products and the the other thing that might happen is they might buy treasury bills some of that money might end up buying a treasury which serves our interest i guess the closest thing to a dark hole would be if the money is cash and it goes into the underground economy but even that is not a negative for us because that's literally an interest free loan be they could have put it into a treasury bill and earn interest that they just take the cash it might not be good for us on the long run because it encourages us to inflate that is create money to buy goods and services and pay these bills and we literally get the benefit temporarily of exploiting our inflation so when these funds leave our country and maybe sit there it's  disadvantage so i don't see many disadvantages for allowing remittances to occur and i don't have a precise question but i would just like to get mr namor maybe to follow up on this and maybe give me an idea about how these funds were broken down is is is the amount that goes into the underground economy minuscule and do some of these dollars enough buying treasury bills and just how do you  see these dollars playing out in the marketplace to start with the disclaimer that i'm not here as the remittance expert i sort of more operate more on the business development side but just a couple of comments general agreeing wholeheartedly of what you've said and pointing out in addition that's a lot of these  productively invested in businesses generate a set of service and products that can actually become part of the trade flows between our country and then there was actually offering american citizens a broader set of cheaper goods and services from other countries so it actually does come back to this country and i couldn't agree more that these are private individuals transacting privately making private decisions about where they want to allocate their monies has taken to the level and amounts of you know where these various regions have to sort of disclaim any real knowledge of that dr i thank you i want to comment on the issue about whether remittances are a substitute for foreign aid just with the example that i think that foreign aid has is aimed at different purposes  achieving structural change in the countries and if you look at the history of usaid and its support for micro finance over the years one of the reasons that we're even talking about the progress that has already been made in helping recipients gain access to financial services in the home  is not in the same order of magnitude as remittances let me read you the figures for banks across mexico in two thousand and six received thirty five billion in all revenues twenty five billion seventeen billion in foreign direct investment fourteen billion and tourism and when it comes to all the a one hundred ten million so you're comparing twenty five billion to one hundred  mention the importance of providing financial literacy to all especially in latin america and including those of indigenous and african heritage please describe some of the unique obstacles faced by these groups when it comes to financial literacy and financial issues in general well we know that indigenous and african descent are the poorest seen in the region so the point is that if you provide financial literacy and opportunities for business development that might be another angle in which our communities can be better off so that would be a way to kind of attack poverty wars and do we want want people to be able to think about what their life financial goals are how to set them how to plan and go about achieving them is one two is to understand what the available options are for themselves as consumers the financial services understand how financial services work and three how to be a smart consumer hell what's the difference between a good set of services that are being offered and one that are not being offered on proper terms thank you for that m bendix again a set of figures five to six million latin americans go to a bank to pick up the remains of their relative in europe or the u s or japan sense that the remittance company but they go pick it up on the back fifty sixty percent ten percent have a back account they're showing up at the bank and everybody's well stop in and open an account they're picking up to three hundred dollars every month and the bank doesn't offer them a savings account a checking money transfer companies and bank to bank services through citibank and either in what countries is this taking place and how successful has a van and is it is it something that actually on intends to replicate in other areas of the working now in nicaragua we have been i think successful in helping our institutions who are small financial institutions and access to the remittance industry on the receiving end become distributors of remittances and i think it's we've faced a harder challenge on the side of developing the across financial products so we are encountering more and my final question is to miss reno in your testimony you mentioned encouraging the large money services businesses to to dedicate one percent of their income to support  sustainable development projects that's interesting dear i my first question is have you suggested this to the industry percent of the income or the profits they generate and of course at the time there was no interest this be a lot of changes which contains a suit which we have to recognize however the saw a lot more to be done in that direction have enjoyed all of the presenters i think they are offering some interesting information and particularly been dixon's part point presentation and how important this remittances are throughout the world and particularly those that have over a billion dollars said riminton says based on that map that i saw but i think of most interest to me were some of the points that were made by dr ryan and miss all the no reason being that you seem to be addressing  how micro loans can help people if they have the financial literacy to invest it or to start up small micro hundred printer ship is and those congressman like myself who have regions and pockets throughout our congressional district where there is great poverty where there is high unemployment they they are they have a similarity to these countries that you talked about the difference being that they don't have five hundred or one thousand dollars annual income like some of these countries do and yet they don't seem to come out of that hole where there is so much poverty and many are second third or fourth generation of immigrants forgive me and i don't aggress but migrants going to harvest crops and coming back so it's interesting that the that you come up with some ideas and so host with my first question to michelle reno you mentioned ways to leverage the remittances what have you found has worked best in the areas that you have studied and why would they be successful and other areas unsuccessful so you mentioned financial literacy and some of the barriers that some of your constituents have one which they call address opening bank accounts or access seen financial products and what was what would be needed in order to to come up with the solution was to engage in a relationship with a financial institution with a credit union through the credit union now now we're not only do financial literacy and money management courses or individual counseling what we do also is an gauged them in the process we engage them in  in a financial institution that provides them with an adequate product that they can use so there's no maintenance fees in some of the products for instance in checking accounts or  which we found that some of our clients could be benefit so they can better off their lives know our primary business is offering financial services and in particular working capital loans for micro businesses and we do that both in the united states and in latin america and around in other countries as well one of the found that that was a third so that's a very substantial fraction to work with in terms of offering them loans what we want to do is to make sure that and we're working on the sort of underwriting methodology is to do this is how can somebody who  receiving a remittance payment get credit for that as in terms of being capacity to borrow so if you're receiving the money on a regular basis that is a becomes part of your income but it's very hard to establish that kind of you know banking framework as something you should be getting credit for and therefore saying you can borrow this money but we're working on methodology to do just that one question to you with the group they can mexico as successful as they are worldwide it seems to me that they would be the was to set the example to the other bankers receiving those remittances on how to over open up accounts to take the owned bank and open up accounts is that happening yes it is happening it's you have to think of citibank and banamex as very large bureaucracy so you have groups within those institutions who are very interested in making that happen but you have a lot of inertia it's turning around the queen and the q e two so yes they're successful but they do have to overcome imbedded kind of interest and  try to understand imagine the ignorance that exists outside and i think that as the president goes to latin america maybe courting to this paddle is pretty clear that no foreign aid is good maybe you know economic development