The Impact of Financial Literacy Training for Migrants

Remittances are a major source of external financing for many developing countries, but the cost of sending them remains high in many migration corridors. Despite efforts to lower these costs by offering new products and developing cost-comparison information sources, many new and promising inexpensive remittance methods have relatively low adoption rates. The lack of financial literacy among migrants has been identified as one potentially important barrier to competition and new product adoption. This paper presents the results of a randomized experiment designed to measure the impact of providing financial literacy training to migrants. Training appears to increase financial knowledge and information-seeking behavior and reduces the risk of switching to costlier remittance products, but it does not result in significant changes in the frequency of remitting or in the remitted amount.