Dominican Republic targets US$4.6B wire money business

New York.- The CEO ofDominican Republic´s State-owned Reservas bank announced Friday that theDominican consulate in New York will provide office space to the financialinstitution to inform visitors of its new service to wire money into thecountry, among other facilities.

Enrique RamirezPaniagua said the Dominican community in the US is interested in benefitingfrom Reservas´ ability to send remittances to relatives in Dominican Republic.

He said Reservas alsopromotes education and financial inclusion for all Dominicans, through its Preservaprogram, aimed at promoting democratization and good use of credit and bankingservices.

As part of the bank´sexpanding its services, the official said last year it started to formalizepartnerships with major money transfer companies in the United States, so Dominicansabroad can coduct those operations.

Ramirez added thatremittances can be received by the beneficiaries through the many offices of Reservas,“which is the only bank with a presence in all provinces and major towns.”

Behemoth WesternUnion

Dominican Republic rankedfourth in Latin American with US$3.3 billion in remittances in 2013, jumping to US$4.6billion in 2014.

Despite previous effortsby major Dominican banks to tap into the multibillion dollar remittances businesses,Western Union with its local affiliate Vimenca still holds a virtual monopolyin the activity, which Reservas apparently aims to challenge with its vastnumber of local branches across Dominican Republic.