The amount of cross-border money transfers via money transfer systems (Anelik, Blizko, Contact, InterExpress, UNIStream, Western Union, Colibri, Golden Crown, and Lider) and Russian Post totaled $3.11 bln in January — March 2015, or 44% less than in the previous quarter ($5.54 bln) and a 36% slide against January — March 2014 ($4.88 bln), the Bank of Russia's latest data and archives show.
Money transfers to the CIS member states totaled $2.53 bln vs. $4.62 bln in 4Q and $4.08 bln in January — March 2014. The leadership in terms of turnover is still held by Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, while a quarterly contraction in money transfers with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan turned out to be larger than the market average (45%). Ukraine is No. 4 when it comes to money transfers with Russia, and in the first quarter of 2015 Kazakhstan moved up to the fifth place, ousting Armenia. Other money transfer destinations are Azerbaijan, Moldova, Belarus and Turkmenistan.
Money transfers declined on the quarter in all destinations across the board, and on an annualized basis increased only with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. It should be noted that these two countries are the only ones in the CIS which recorded the positive balance of money transfers with Russia, i.e. they receive more funds from Russia than amounts transferred to Russia.
Non-CIS money transfers totaled $575 mln in 1Q 2015, or down nearly 38% q-o-q and 28% y-o-y (from $920 mln and $802 mln, respectively). Compared to October — December 2014 Top 5 destinations remained the same (China, Georgia, Turkey, the US and Germany). This year the Philippines got into the list of countries with the highest money transfers with Russia, ousting Thailand from Top 20.
The negative balance of transfers (more funds are transferred from Russia than the money wired to Russia) is recorded with China, Georgia, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Vietnam, Latvia, Poland and the Philippines, while the positive balance (more funds are transferred to Russia than in the opposite direction) is seen with the United States, Germany, Israel, Italy, the UAE, Abkhazia, the UK, France, Spain, Greece, Canada, and South Korea.
