According to Dallas-based Juan Agualimpia, the company’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, the Philippines may not be ranked the highest in the world in terms of remittances and from a population perspective but Filipinos are working abroad to send money back home.

“There’s this cultural intention of sending money back home. They [Filipinos] go to work outside the Philippines, to send money back home. That’s not necessarily true for other nations,” Agualimpia said during his recent visit to the country.

The company is expected to launch its global Christmas campaign to tap those Filipinos who are expected to send more money for the holidays.

According to Alex Chan Lim, Moneygram’s country manager in the Philippines, the country with a population of about 94 million ranks fourth in the world in receiving remittances from about 10 million Filipinos working abroad from laborers to engineers to seafarers.

“If you look at the population of China and India they’re in the billions. And I think it’s a cultural thing for the Filipinos [to send money back home]. They just have to send it,” Lim said.

According to its estimates, an average migrant Filipino worker sends about $200 to $250 per month on a regular days and the amount could go higher during festivals such as the coming Christmas and enrollment seasons.

(VG Cabuag)