When you consider that payments sent to friends or family abroad, or remittances, make up a sizable chunk of the income of hundreds of millions around the globe, the need for lower costs and faster transfers becomes obvious. So we took a deep dive into the remittance industry to understand how innovators are using blockchain to improve services.

Our report, which you can download from our insights page, looks at the current state of the remittance industry, how blockchain technology can be used for remittances, and what the potential impact of blockchain will be on this industry. To see a full list of the projects we included in this report, check out our cross-border payments markets page.

As a relatively new technology, blockchain innovation can be costly and slow to progress. However, given that annual global remittance payments are projected to surpass $1 trillion by 2022, the potential impact of blockchain here is enormous. Improvements to transfer speeds and a reduction in fees will have a real impact on the well-being of hundreds of millions of people.

Key insights from our report

The global remittance industry is projected to hit $1 trillion by 2022 and $1.4 trillion by 2025.

Based on the compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) for each region since 2000, we project that global remittance outflows will grow by around 12% each year.