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New money transfer player (Omni Transfer & Payments) target Haitians in Bahamas

The business of helping people wire money from The Bahamas to the rest of the world is heating up as the country's newest player makes a move to corner the lucrative market.

"We were always cheaper and now everybody has come down in their pricing," said Hubert Morris, manager of Omni Money Transfers and Payments.

"This is what competition is doing."

The small firm has seen explosive growth since opening the doors on its first store in 2005. Its wiring services are geared, for the most part, at helping foreign nationals send and receive money from home.

Some of Omni's business has come at the expense of longstanding industry leader Western Union, offered through Fidelity banks.

Morris makes no apologies to the competition.

"Fidelity has controlled the market for years and years," he said. The Bank of the Bahamas - with its MoneyGram counters - is the local industry's third and relatively minor player.

"We're coming in because there's enough business for everyone."

The International Monetary Fund pegged the world's money transfer business at $230 billion in 2005.

That year alone Haitian nations living abroad sent back $2 billion to family and friends.

Omni has mounted an aggressive strategy to target Haitian residents here and in the Family islands.

The customers are all legal residents, said Dr. John Rodgers, head of the Bahamian company.

The Central Bank, in fact, requires all residents to present certification documents in order for firms to process their cash transfers.

All transactions are subject to exchange rate charges and stamp tax, collected for the government.

Those charges are the same across the board. Omni has led its competitors in a drive to lower the one way they make their money - through commission fees.

It's two new Nassau operations, due to open later this month, are also positioned for direct appeal to Haitian and other migrant workers.

"The stores will be over the hill," he said. "Because that's where the bulk of the people are.

"They're mostly un-banked people."

The Central Bank is now analyzing data on the people who frequently turn to Omni and other institutions to wire money out of the country. Under current Bahamian law foreign workers can transfer as much as 50 per cent of their annual income out of the country.

The cumulative effect, say some analysts, is to further exacerbate the liquidity crunch the Bank is now grappling to bring under control.

But Rodgers argues that his service works to mitigate costs to the Bahamian economy by helping discourage illegal immigration.

"About 46 per cent of the total Haitian GDP comes from Haitians nationals sending money home," he said.

The cash is keeping afloat an otherwise sinking economy, he argues.

Omni and others in the industry have now moved to step up their advertizing campaigns in an effort to garner more and more of the burgeoning trade.

"It's a huge business now," said Tanya Wright with the Bank of the Bahamas. It's MoneyGram services are also used by cruise ship employees looking to send wages to their home accounts.

She concedes that Omni may make inroads even with that more sophisticated end of the market.

"We have been doing money transfers a lot longer than Omni," she said, "but their flexible hours give them a competitive edge."

Unlike money transfer counters at Bank of the Bahamas or Fidelity, Rodgers's operations stay open past traditional banker's hours.