BRITISH banking and financial giant Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. said money sent home from Filipinos working overseas will continue to recover in the months ahead after the government lifted the deployment ban to some countries in the Middle East.
HSBC said in a report over the weekend remittances in May likely grew 9.2 percent, a bit slower than the 12.7-percent expansion a month ago.
“We expect remittances to rise 7.5 percent month-on-month and 9.2 percent year-on-year in May as overseas transfers begin to recover after a slow start to the year. Remittances growth has been robust across regions with the exception of the Middle East, where remittances have declined on a yearly basis since the beginning of the year due partly to restrictions on overseas Filipino workers’ deployment to Kuwait at the start of the year,” HSBC said.
“We expect this to recover toward the end of the year now that the ban has been lifted and for remittances growth to remain broadly in line with its historical trend of 5-6 percent,” it said.