Nigeria – a booming market for money transfers

Nigeria – a booming market for money transfers

Lady Olga Maitland, ceo of IAMTN addressed Lagos Business School
On the remittance market to Nigeria

Lady Olga Maitland addressed a seminar at the Lagos Business School headed by the Director, Professor Pat Utomi on February 7th.
In her remarks Lady Olga referred to the booming capital flows to Nigeria from all over the world.
It is estimated that Nigeria receives an estimated £1.3b. a year. Over all Nigerians in the diaspora have remitted at least US $28b. over the last eight years.
Experts have estimated that the true amount including money moving through informal channels is probably four times that amount, ie. US$112billion over the same period.
According to AfricaRecruit, a survey they carried out, showed that 92% of the remittances are invested, as against being used for family sustenance purposes.
A breakdown of those surveyed by AfricaRecruit showed by of the sums remitted for family support, 41% is used for remittance purposes.
O ver all the recipients vary from relatives, to the self employed to top level executives.
Of the investment percentage, 40% goes into capital markets (stocks and shares); followed by real estate, family businesses. Private Venture capital projects comes next.
Remittance flows to Nigeria account for approximately 5% of Nigeria’s gdp.
As Lady Olga remarked:”Nigeria’s money transfer market is vibrant and by the very nature of most of the transactions, the flow goes directly into projects and families rather than indefinable schemes . This in turn has played a key role in the economic development

Contact Information

Lady Olga Maitland

CEO

IAMTN

Contact via E-mail