Unauthorized money transfer operators must be curbed, and secure channels for cross-border transfers established, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said yesterday following recent cases of remittance operators defrauding migrant workers.
Remittance through “gray market” services to Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand is estimated at NT$50 billion (US$1.65 billion) each year, DPP Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, citing data from the Ministry of Labor and the central bank.
However, when accounting for migrant workers who break their contracts to take jobs in the underground economy, the estimate would be closer to NT$100 billion, she said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
DPP Legislator Kuo Kuo-wen (郭國文) cited a case of a Vietnamese national who allegedly lost NT$600,000 to fraudsters posing as a remittance service.
“Underground remittance operators prey on migrant workers. They have no authorization to engage in financial business, and are not under the scrutiny of government regulatory bodies, Kuo said.
“They use legal loopholes and endanger to the stability of our nation’s financial sector,” he said.
Migrant workers choose these operators partly due to a language barrier, and partly due to ignorance of local business practices and laws, Kuo said.
These operators also appear to offer lower transaction fees and better exchange rates, he added.
Migrant workers have difficulty accessing Taiwanese banks given that regular banking hours conflict with the long workdays they often experience, and they often rely on services introduced by their compatriots, DPP Legislator Chang Hung-lu (張宏陸) said.
The brokerage firms migrant workers use also become “gray market” remittance channels, he said.
“These firms deposit monthly wages from employers, and they commonly add remittance agency services for migrant workers, charging additional commissions for money transfers,” Chang said.
“Brokerage firms are not authorized to engage in cross-border remittance,” he added.
Judicial investigations discovered apps used by by criminal organizations offering remittance operations, Chang said.
The lawmakers urged the Financial Supervisory Commission and Ministry of Labor to help migrant workers find legal remittance service providers via communications campaigns in the workers’ languages, adding that booklets of such information could be handed to newly arrived migrant workers.
They also called for judicial authorities to crack down on illegal operators who promote their services on social media, and for government agencies to make regular checks on brokerage firms.
Rewards could be offered for those who provide information leading to illegal remittance operators being stopped, they added.
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