The Dominican Republic is the fourth largest market for remittances in all of Latin America. The Listin Diario reports that 1.4 million Dominicans sent US$2.7 billion back home in 2004. Only Mexico, Brazil and Colombia receive more money than the DR. The information is contained in a report from the IDB. The report shows that only Jamaica and El Salvador have higher remittance-per person rates. Hoy newspaper reports that 38% of the Dominican population receives some remittance money. Much of the data was supplied by Sergio Bendixon, Leonor Suki and Pedro de Vasxoncelos during a conference on “Sending money to remittance houses in the Dominican Republic”, sponsored by the local IDB representative Moises Pineda.
Diario Libre points out that most money is transferred through remittance houses rather than more formal banking institutions. Fully 84% of the US$2.7 billion comes through the remittance businesses in the US and Europe. Over half of the money comes from The United States and of the 21% that comes from Europe, over half of it comes from Spain, followed by Italy, France and Switzerland.