Fintech, Remittances and Development: A Theoretical Account of How Digital Transfer Infrastructures Reshape the Cost, Direction and Developmental Use of Migrant Money (IIAR Journal of Student Research)

Summary

• Literature searches were conducted in October 2026 focusing on peer-reviewed research published between 2023 and 2026.p.4
• The framework establishes 5 testable theoretical propositions linking remittance channel properties to developmental consequences.p.6
• Historical precedent includes state-managed migrant labor remittance systems in British Central Africa operating between the 1930s and the 1960s.p.3
• The article is published across 11 pages in the IIAR Journal of Student Research.p.11

Key insights

1. Digital transfer infrastructures reshape remittance channels along three core dimensions: cost, traceability, and programmability.p.5
2. Lower transaction costs encourage more frequent, smaller remittances that favor household consumption smoothing and resilience over lump-sum investments.p.6
3. Increasing regulatory burdens and taxes on formal channels risk displacing flows into less traceable informal or peer-to-peer alternatives.p.7
4. Sender-led voluntary programmability enhances developmental impact, whereas state- or platform-led conditioning reduces migrants' willingness to send money.p.7
5. Complementary domestic institutions and macroeconomic stability dictate whether cheaper remittance transfers generate sustained economic development.p.7
6. Wide gaps between official and parallel foreign-exchange rates drive Nigerian remittance senders away from formal channels into peer-to-peer markets.p.8