The OCC’s Community Affairs Department recently released an edition of the Community Developments Insights which examines the role of banks in providing money transfer services and reviews the goals of banks in offering these products. It describes how banks can use these products to attract unbanked immigrants into the banking system and become providers of a variety of financial products and services that immigrants can use. It addresses some of the key risks and regulatory issues presented by bank involvement in these products, as well as structural and cultural barriers to the growth of bank remittance products. Although immigrants in the U.S. remit funds to countries throughout the world, this analysis addresses the Mexican market because it is the largest and where banks have focused most of their attention. The report can be accessed at: http://www.occ.treas.gov/cdd/Remittances1.pdf