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What are the top international remittance services in the Philippines by market share?
Hello! Thanks for your question about the market shares of top international remittance services in the Philippines. The short version is that after searching extensively through academic journals, annual reports, corporate websites, news articles, industry reports as well as regulatory filings, I’ve determined that the information you requested is not publicly available. This is largely attributable to the fact that the most of the companies listed (Western Union, MoneyGram, Xoom, TransferWise, SCI andBitwire) do not publicly disclose information pertaining to regional breakdowns of their remittance transfers. Additionally, the newer entrants (Xoom, IRemit and Transferwise) tend to have partnerships with local banks -- which means that their market shares are often conflated. The search parameter of 2 years (2016-2017) renders triangulation impossible as there is insufficient public data. However, I was able to derive the overall remittance market size in the Philippines, as well as the market share commanded by banks that provide remittance services. Below you will find a deep dive of my research and methodology.
METHODOLOGY
After searching exhaustively, I was not able to locate market share data pertaining to the companies that you have listed. First, I looked through the past two years of news articles, World Bank/OECD reports, industrial reports and SEC regulatory filings. While I was able to find out some information regarding the companies' top revenue sources, it soon became apparent that none of them provide market share breakdowns of any kind by region. The closest I was able to find was Xoom's revenue disclosures in their SEC filings where they declared that the top three countries, India, Mexico and the Philippines, in the aggregate represented approximately 78%, 77% and 74% of the Company’s revenue for 2014, 2013, and 2012, respectively. Next, I looked through all the companies' annual reports but I did not manage to find specific information that would be relevant to determining their market share in the Philippines.
HELPFUL FINDINGS
While I could not find a direct answer to your question, I was able to gather some information about this topic, which I think is relevant to your request.
OVERALL MARKET SIZE
As per your request, I looked through the most recent World Bank reports in order to triangulate the overall remittance market size in the Philippines. In 2016, the country's total GDP clocked in at US$304.905 billion. During the same year, statistics provided by the World Bank show that total remittances constitute 10.2% of the country's GDP. This means that the overall remittance market size in the Philippines is approximately US$31.0998 billion.
APPROXIMATE MARKET SHARE OF COMMERCIAL BANKS
Majority of money remittances received by Filipino households in 2016 were routed through commercial banks. Through my research, I was able to find out that the Banco De Oro (BDO) commands 40% of the overall remittance market share as of 2017, making it the most dominant player. The Bank of the Philippines Islands ( BPI ) commands 27% of the market share, while iRemit (an international remittance service provider) commands 7% of the market share. Most of the market share information pertaining to the other banks were published before 2016, thus rendering my triangulation irrelevant. However, from this data alone, we can conclude that commercial banks collectively command at the very least 67%of the total market share (40%+27%) and at the very most 93% of the total market share (100%-7%). The actual figure is likely between these two upper and lower limits.
The dated market share information provided by Xoom allows for the triangulation of two other banks: The Philippines National Bank (20%) and Metrobank (as of 2014, their market share was 13.289%, which is derived by obtaining the constituent percentage of US$4 billion from US$30.0998 billion). However, it is highly unlikely that either bank would have retained their market shares in 2016 as market conditions have changed drastically with new disruptions in financial technology (BitCoin etc.) as well has the historically volatile growth rates of banks in the remittance market. It is also highly unlikely these two banks have retained their market share percentages as that would imply that commercial banks collectively command 100% of the total market share.
LIST OF MAJOR PLAYERS IN THE INTERNATIONAL REMITTANCE MARKET ACCORDING TO MARKET SHARE
I was able to locate a table from an industry report that lists major players according to their market share in a descending order. However, no actual figures were provided in the report, and the percentages listed next to the names of the banks and companies are a derived from my earlier triangulation. The list is as follows:
1. Banco De Oro (40%)
2. The Bank of Philippine Islands
3. Philippine National Bank (27%)
4. Metropolitan Bank
5. Wells Fargo
6. Western Union
7. iRemit (7%)
8. Moneygram
9. Xoom
10. LBC Express
POSSIBLE CONTINUED RESEARCH
In understanding what types of information are and are not publicly available on this topic, I have suggested a few other routes you may be interested in researching:
1. Given that the specific regional breakdowns are not available for the international companies listed, I suggest looking for information outside of 2016-2017 so that projections can be made based on data from earlier years. My findings suggest that international companies have less volatile grown rates in the market.
2. Since not every bank has disclosed up-to-date information pertaining to their market share and growth volatility renders historical market share data irrelevant, I suggest approaching your project from a slightly different perspective: instead of comparing banks and companies individually, it may be easier to compare market shares between commercial banks as a whole and international remittance service providers (Western Union, MoneyGram, Xoom, TransferWise, SCI and BitWire-- all of which are collectively known as financial technology, or FinTech companies).
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, after searching extensively through academic journals, annual reports, corporate websites, news articles, industry reports as well as regulatory filings, a direct answer to your question is not publicly available because the companies that you have listed do not publicly disclose regional breakdowns of remittance transfers. However, I learned that the total remittance market size in the Philippines is approximately US$30.0998 billion, and that the commercial banks still command the majority of the remittance market share.
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