article in new jersey star ledger today talks about money transfers to Brazil from the U.S. and also one particular Bank offering a new remittance program like GTEL's:
(bcpbank, a Portuguese bank with branches in Newark, formed an alliance with Brazil's state-owned Caixa Economica Federal to establish a remittance program, offering account-to-account transfers from the United States to Brazil. )
Every month, Evando Lacerda dutifully sends $400 to his parents in Minas Gerais,Brazil, so that they can pay for private health insurance.
Lacerda, who left Brazil three years ago, said he does this so that his parents do not have to depend on the country's public health system, which he considers unreliable and unsafe. Both parents, who are 67 years old, have heart ailments.
"If I don't send the money, they won't have insurance," said 28-year-old Lacerda, who works at Casa Nova restaurant in the Ironbound section of Newark.
DeRnelito Viana, a bartender at Brasilia Grill, sends money monthly to Brazil as well, but for a different reason. He wires a total of $300 -- $200 to be deposited in a social security retirement account and $100 for his parents.
"A lot of people send money to Brazil," said Viana, who plans to return to his homeland in a couple of years.
According to the Inter-American Development Bank, a Washington, D.C.-based group that supports development in Latin America and the Caribbean, Brazilians at home receive more than $5 billion annually in remittances from relatives abroad. This makes Brazil the second-largest remittance market in Latin America after Mexico. The average remittance from each sender in the United States is $3,000 a year, according to the development bank.
Money transfers to Brazil is big business in Newark, where some 6,696 residents were born in Brazil, according to the 2000 Census. In New Jersey, there are 22,097 Brazilian-born residents, though the number is actually much higher due to undocumented residents.
Though it is impossible to say just how much money is being sent from any specific region, it is easy to see how Newark's Ironbound section, a Portuguese and Brazilian enclave, factors into the equation. Wire transfer agencies can be seen on virtually every block along Ferry Street and Wilson Avenue, two main thoroughfares.
Dozens of agencies line the streets, from tiny storefront operations to larger companies such as Western Union and Vigo. Many agents say their main business is to Brazil.
Lacerda and Viana represent typical Brazilian émigrés who wire money home to help support their families or pay large debts they may have accrued before they migrated to America. Others use the money they have earned here in the United States to open businesses back home.
Giselle Dantas, a 25-year-old graphics designer who came from Brazil five years ago, sends money home to help her family and also to purchase clothes, she said. Her mother buys clothing and ships it back to her in Newark.
Clothes and shoes in Brazil cost one-third what they do at stores in the Ironbound, which import from Brazil, Dantas said.
Mario Trujillo, the chief executive of Vigo, an international money transfer agency based in Florida, said Brazil ranks among the top 10 countries the company services. The company sends $3 billion a year to 40 countries.
Vigo, like other money transfer agencies such as Western Union and MoneyGram, charges a fee to wire money abroad; the fee depends on the transfer amount. At Vigo, for example, there is a $5 fee for amounts up to $500 and a $10 fee for transactions up to $1,000. Other companies charge a percentage of the money transferred.
At Vigo on Ferry Street, one of the company's top locations for wire remittances in the country, about $800,000 a month is remitted to Brazil, manager Alcina De Oliveira said. Eighty percent of her transactions are to Brazil, followed by Mexico, then Ecuador, she said.
De Oliveira, who has worked at the location for 17 years, said many of her clients are sending money home to finance a family businesses or to pay debts.
"When they come here, they leave a lot of debts," De Oliveira said.
At Francine's Travel, co-owners Francine Melo and Nathalia Canet said they remit more than $80,000 a month to Brazil alone.
"People make three, four deposits a day sometimes. Some people come in here and send $10,000 a week," Melo said. "They don't spend their money here."
Because of this demand, bcpbank, a Portuguese bank with branches in Newark, formed an alliance with Brazil's state-owned Caixa Economica Federal to establish a remittance program, offering account-to-account transfers from the United States to Brazil. The funds deposited in the remittance account are transferred to the beneficiary's account maintained at Caixa Economica.
Bcpbank plans to use an identity card -- a so-called matricula card -- that will enable illegal immigrants to open savings or checking accounts for sending money back home. The bank will charge a 2.5 percent fee per transaction.
Pedro Belo, chief executive of bcpbank, said the Brazilian government is eager to reclaim the remittance market since much of the money is unaccounted for. Brazil reported receiving $5.27 billion in remittances in 2003. Of that number, only $2.9 billion was controlled by the Central Bank of Brazil, Belo said. That means most of the money was sent through other means -- out of the government's control.
That translates into lost revenue for the government, which charges a 3 percent tax for money that is received from abroad. It also means money falls into illegal hands on the black market.
"Half of the dollars get lost in Brazil and end up who knows where," Belo said. "That's why Brazilians are so anxious."
Carlos Viana, editorial chief of Brasilia Press, which is published in the Ironbound, said the Brazilian government has taken steps to account for remittances. Over the last few years, the government has cracked down on illegal money changers, called do leiros, which some expatriates had relied on.
"Ten years ago, there were do leiros in every corner," Viana said.
Lacerda, like many others in the area, said he uses reputable agencies such as Western Union to transfer funds instead of lesser-known outfits. He said it is critical the money arrive promptly.
"My parents depend on this money," he said.
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