By Leon Isaacs, CEO DMA Global

This is the first in a series of blogs on remittances data produced for IFAD to help everyone understand how to think about data and maximize the use of the RemitSCOPE platform that has been developed.

Remittances, the money sent home by migrants, are a vital lifeline for millions of households around the world. In 2024 it is estimated that low- and middle-income countries received USD653 billion in remittance inflows[1]. These funds support families with everyday expenses, education, healthcare, savings, help fuel small businesses and act as a vehicle to increase financial inclusion.

Whilst we have an amount of information on remittances, we still don’t have a clear and granular picture of them, who sends/receives them, how much goes through each corridor, which methods are used and much more. If you’ve ever tried to work with remittance data, whether for policy, product development, or market research, you know it’s a minefield of gaps, inconsistencies, and guesswork.

So why is remittance data important? Why is it so tricky? And more importantly, what can we do to make the best use of the information that’s available?

Why Better Data Matters for Everyone

It’s easy to think of remittance data as a technical issue. But it has real-world consequences for a wide range of players:

• For businesses and investors accurate data helps fintechs, banks, and MTOs decide where to expand, how to price their services, how to design their products and which partners to work with. It helps mitigate the risk of not knowing.
• Policymakers and Governments need good data to track progress on financial inclusion, and create the right environment to encourage safe, secure and low-cost payments. Harnessing comparative data from their peers helps them develop policies and targets more efficiently.
• For Development Agencies accurate remittances data can help track impact, allocate funding, and design programs.
• For Academics and Researchers accurate remittance data enables empirical analysis of migration patterns, economic development and financial inclusion, supporting peer-reviewed scholarship that informs policy and practice.

Understanding what is behind the numbers, why they are sometimes inconsistent and using the tools that are out there are good tactics for all stakeholders.

Central Bank vs. World Bank: Why Are the Numbers Different?

Most people are familiar with the aggregate remittances’ numbers (the USD653m mentioned above) published by the World Bank. This has been the most consistent source of reference for many years. Encouragingly, a small number of countries are now publishing their own data regularly although they are not always the same as those of the World Bank.

Here’s why:

• The World Bank has developed its own mode focusing on a country’s balance of payment (BOP) data and estimations to adjust for informal flows or data gaps. It should be noted that the guidance for BOP data collection, called BPM 6, allows for different account methodologies to be used by each country.
• Central banks collect data from banks and licensed money transfer operators, usually focusing on formal channels. This data is generally collected and published monthly and, whilst not perfect, provides a current picture and a degree of accuracy. The advantage of Central Bank data is that it often includes information by corridor, which helps to identify where policy and business focus should be. This is an added advantage that the World Bank data does not cover. However, there are limited number of countries that are publishing reliable and regular remittance information at a corridor level.

New developments are helping

The good news is that there are some tools that have been developed to help make data more accessible and to understand what is available.

Metadata does matter and to address this UNCDF (the UN Capital Development Fund) has produced a tool covering 38 countries that describes the remittance data that is collected, including information on who collects the data, what is collected and how it is analysed. It is called the “UNCDF Remittances Benchmarking tool for remittances”[2]. It is extremely useful for showing what is available but also highlights how much more work is needed to produce a comprehensive picture. Interestingly, most of the data is collected directly from local banks and regulated financial institutions in paying out countries via electronic data transfer, APIs or old-fashioned paper-based reporting.

RemitSCOPE,[3] launched and managed by IFAD, focusing on Africa, Asia and Latin America, provides a comprehensive picture of remittances in over 130 countries and covers up to 140 variables in a free-to-use publicly available site. In addition to the data, it contains useful indexes and insights. One of the key features of RemitSCOPE is that it includes remittance and pricing information by corridor as well as both World Bank and Centra Bank data, making for easier comparisons.

More recently RemitSCOPE has expanded its Central Bank data offering to include direct access to interactive dashboards and richer data sources. Users have access to annual Central Bank data and more detailed, disaggregated and frequently updated remittance data — including corridor-level insights, monthly trends and additional breakdowns.

Data from the Central Bank of the Philippines, the State Bank of Pakistan, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, the Central Bank of Kenya and the Bank of Uganda, including Uganda’s new interactive remittance dashboard is currently featured. These tools provide deeper insights into remittance flows, including values, volumes, corridors, channels, and user profiles.

As more Central Banks publish detailed remittance data and dashboards, RemitSCOPE will continue to expand, strengthening access to timely and actionable market intelligence.

Making the Most of the data and tools that we have

Despite the challenges, businesses, regulators, and development actors can extract value from existing data by:

• Using multiple sources– Cross-reference central bank stats, World Bank estimates, household surveys and use the tools that are available, for example, RemitSCOPE.
• Invest in local data systems– Build capacity in national statistics offices and central banks and ensure that data is published and available to all
• Demand greater transparency by both making data available and explaining what it includes
• Support innovations– Use tools like RemitSCOPE and provide input on what else you would like to see

Better data isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity.

There is more data available than people know and the global data infrastructure is slowly improving. Until we get exactly what is needed in terms of granular data that helps us understand not just the flows but the people who are using remittances, we need to get smart about triangulating sources and using every available insight to design services and policies that truly reflect how money moves and how people live. The data is often somewhere but it is not published or shared in a useful way.

[1] https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/peoplemove/in-2024–remittance-flows-to-low–and-middle-income-countries-ar?CID=WBW_AL_BlogNotification_EN_EXT

[2] https://migrantmoney.uncdf.org/benchmarking-tool/

[3] is a centralised, global repository of remittance and remittance-related data and market intelligence. It informs business and policy decision making through interactive dashboards and remittance country profiles.