Remittances to HCM City total 3.45 billion USD in the first eight months of 2019. (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City received about 3.45 billion USD inremittances sent back home by overseas Vietnamese in the first eight months of 2019, a year-on-yearincrease of 8 percent, according to the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV)’s HCM City Branch.
The figure isprojected to exceed 5 billion USD for the whole year, said Deputy Director of theSBV’s HCM City Branch NguyenHoang Minh.
With about 4.5million Vietnamese people living overseas, remittance flows into Vietnam andthe country’s southern hub in particular have been rising in recent years.
Theremittances to Vietnam this year are forecast to increase due to the country’s stable monetary policiescoupled with the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut in June, Minh said.
Remittancereceivers tended to exchange foreign currencies into Vietnamese dong toenjoy higher deposit interest rates as the rate on deposits in US dollars has been zero for more than twoyears.
According toMoneyGram, remittances to Vietnam last year reached 18.9 billion USD, up 37percent form a year earlier. The sum made the country the tenth largestremittance receiver in the world and the second in Southeast Asia.
Last week, MoneyGram, a global provider money transfer and paymentservices, and HDBank signed an agreement to provide home remittance deliveryservices in Vietnam.
Customers in urban areasusing HDBank's home remittance service through MoneyGram will receive moneywithin three hours if the transaction is performed before 10:30am local time.
Customers living insuburban and rural areas will receive money on the same day, though in remoteareas in the north the money might take one day.–VNA
VNA
