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Remittance inflows play a crucial role in Nepal's economy. Officially recorded remittances already amounted to almost a quarter of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2009. The 2008-09 global economic crises resulted in slower growth of remittance inflows in Nepal, leading directly to lower disposable income. This is a telling reminder of the importance of promoting a supportive environment for remittances. Nepali migration continues to increase as workers seek greater economic opportunities abroad. In this quest, Qatar is one of the important migration destinations for Nepali migrant workers. This report analyzes the migration and remittance transfer processes in the Qatar-Nepal Corridor in order to provide policy recommendations that would help improve the scale and impact of remittance transfers from Qatar to Nepal, and enhance the efficiency and integrity of migration and remittances in the corridor. The report identifies challenges in the migration process from Nepal to Qatar (related to high migration costs and their financing) and constraints in the remittance transfer process from Qatar to Nepal, which together limit the development and poverty reduction impact of remittance flows to Nepali households. As this report highlights, the Qatar-Nepal remittance corridor has several distinctive features. First, the majority of remittance flows from Qatar to Nepal are being transferred through officially regulated remittance channels. One of the reasons for this is actually the second feature of this corridor, namely, the officially managed migration process from Nepal to Qatar (as a result of which the majority of migrants are documented workers). The third feature is the contrast between the high competition and low prices of remittance services in this corridor on the one hand, and the contradictory rules and high costs incurred during the migration process on the other hand. Finally, as a by-product of the complex migration process which involves multiple players, financial transfers through informal mechanisms take place from Nepal to Qatar in order to pay the commissions of manpower agencies and middlemen.

Efforts to launder money and finance terrorism have been evolving rapidly in recent years in response to heightened countermeasures. The international community has witnessed the use of increasingly sophisticated methods to move illicit funds through financial systems across the globe and has acknowledged the need for improved multilateral cooperation to fight these criminal activities. This second edition is to serve as a single, comprehensive source of practical information for countries to fight money laundering and terrorist financing. It discusses the problems caused by these crimes, the specific actions countries need to take to address them and the role international organizations play in the process. The report is organized as follows: Part A of this Reference Guide describes the problem of money laundering and terrorist financing, their adverse consequences, and the benefits of an effective regime. It also identifies the relevant international standard-setting organizations and discusses their specific efforts and instruments that fight these activities. Part B describes the various elements that are part of a comprehensive legal and institutional framework for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism for any country. This part of the Reference Guide is a step-by-step approach to achieve compliance with international standards, although it does not dictate the specific methods or actions to be adopted. Rather, it raises the issues that must be addressed and discusses the options that a country has in order to resolve these issues. Part C describes the role of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the global effort and the coordination of technical assistance available to countries in order to help them achieve compliance with international standards. Each chapter is a self-contained discussion of the topics covered in that chapter with detailed references to background and original source materials. Annexes I, II and III provide complete citations to reference materials.

The Indian Postal Service, one of the world’s largest and most accessible communication networks, is undergoing a significant transformation driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and digital globalisation. This article explores how AI technologies—such as automated sorting, real-time parcel tracking, route optimisation and fraud detection—are enabling India Post to modernise its operations and better serve the growing demands of e-commerce, especially in rural regions. Drawing from internal performance assessments and external case studies, the study reveals that pilot AI implementations have improved classification accuracy by 30% and reduced delivery times by up to 18%. Strategic partnerships with major e-commerce platforms, like Amazon India, further highlight the postal network’s evolving role in last-mile logistics. Additionally, the integration of AI into India Post Payments Bank is expanding financial inclusion, especially in underserved areas. The findings underscore the importance of sustained investment in technology, infrastructure and workforce training to ensure the long-term viability of India Post in a rapidly digitising global economy.

This scoping review examined what is known in the literature about Hispanic/Latinx unbanked households. It used Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) five-step process to analyze 12 peer-reviewed research articles from preselected databases and journals. Using Braun and Clarke's (2006) Reflexive Thematic Analysis, the author constructed three themes to synthesize the literature. The first theme is about data sets used that include both nationally representative data sets and smaller data sets collected locally. The second theme showed that \"unbanked\" has not been consistently defined across the literature varying according to the account type, institution type, and account owner. The third theme revealed the reasons why Hispanic/Latinx households might be unbanked. The results have implications for future research and financial practitioners who work with Hispanic/Latinx clientele.

The Banque de l’Afrique Occidentale was a Paris-based bank that operated in French colonies in West Africa and Equatorial Africa. From 1901 to 1955 it was a monopoly note issuer and so had one characteristic of a central bank alongside its commercial banking functions. This paper briefly reviews its history during that period, which apparently has not previously been done in English; collects the main legal enactments related to the bank, never done before for the whole period of its existence as a note issuer; and analyzes its balance sheet, which has never been digitized before and is available in an accompanying spreadsheet workbook. Through the balance sheet, the paper examines the composition of the bank’s assets and liabilities and how they evolved over time. It concludes with some observations about the bank’s role in French colonial Africa.

The study of information flow has been under-developed in telecommunications history in part due to the paucity of traffic data. Interestingly Imperial Japan has left a remarkably large collection of telecommunication traffic data, perhaps unmatched by other imperial powers. Given the enormous importance Japan placed on its telecommunications network at home and in East Asia, it is only appropriate to ask how it was used and what kind of information went through it. As a preliminary analysis of the traffic data in the Japanese empire over its fifty-year history, my paper examines the content, volume, and direction of information flows as well as the underlying economic, political, and technological factors. Such an analysis can enrich our understanding of how a modern empire operates in terms of its control of information flows. It can provide empirical flesh to the structural theory of imperialism, as proposed by Johan Galtung and others.

This article analyses labour-intensive workforce strategies in Japan's government-run informational infrastructure (post, telegraph, and telephone) and in the adjunct services associated with their administration in the decades up to the Pacific War. It asks to what extent the growing scale of employment in Japan's communications infrastructure in this period confirms the existence of labour-intensive growth outside the manufacturing sector, and how far the growth of the labour force in post and telecommunications was facilitated by specific labour-absorbing institutions—that is, formal or informal institutions designed to mobilise or incentivise large numbers of employees. The discussion of these two associated questions shows not only that this area of infrastructure provision was highly labour-intensive in terms of the numbers employed and the diverse tasks undertaken, but also that the government-run postal system in effect depended for its growth and development on labour strategies and labour-absorbing institutions analogous to those usually associated with manufacturing development. The article also seeks to establish how far we can see in this sector the gradual improvement in the quality of labour normally associated with the labour-intensive industrialisation process, providing evidence that the evolving institutions were closely associated with a gradual improvement in the quality of labour and its ability to interact with rapidly changing needs and technologies.

We utilize a representative sample of the U.S. adult population to analyze how unbanked consumers make payments for goods and services and how they pay their bills.