Ho Chi Minh City received about 3.45 billion USD in remittances sent back home by overseas Vietnamese in the first eight months of 2019, a year-on-year increase of 8 percent, according to the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV)’s HCM City Branch.

Remittances to HCM City total 3.45 billion USD in the first eight months of 2019. 

The figure is projected to exceed 5 billion USD for the whole year, said Deputy Director of the SBV’s HCM City Branch Nguyen Hoang Minh.

 With about 4.5 million Vietnamese people living overseas, remittance flows into Vietnam and the country’s southern hub in particular have been rising in recent years.

 The remittances to Vietnam this year are forecast to increase due to the country’s stable monetary policies coupled with the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut in June, Minh said.

 Remittance receivers tended to exchange foreign currencies into Vietnamese dong to enjoy higher deposit interest rates as the rate on deposits in US dollars has been zero for more than two years.

 According to MoneyGram, remittances to Vietnam last year reached 18.9 billion USD, up 37 percent form a year earlier. The sum made the country the tenth largest remittance receiver in the world and the second in Southeast Asia.

 Last week, MoneyGram, a global provider money transfer and payment services, and HDBank signed an agreement to provide home remittance delivery services in Vietnam.

 Customers in urban areas using HDBank's home remittance service through MoneyGram will receive money within three hours if the transaction is performed before 10:30am local time.

 Customers living in suburban and rural areas will receive money on the same day, though in remote areas in the north the money might take one day.