Top money senders transferred Dh74 billion to their home countries in 2014.
Expatriates from India, Pakistan and the Philippines are the biggest money senders in the UAE, remitting a total of $20.2 billion (Dh74 billion) in 2014, according to a new report.
Among the three expatriate groups, Indians took the lead in remittances by transferring $12.6 billion worth of funds to their home country last year.
A report released by Kuwait Financial Centre Markaz also showed that expatriates from Pakistan are the second biggest remitters, sending a total of $4.1 billion in the same period.
Expatriates from the Philippines took the third spot, with $3.4 billion in remittances.
The rest of the major expatriate communities in Dubai, including the Bangladeshis, which occupied the fourth spot, Egyptians (fifth), Indonesians (sixth), Sri Lankans (seventh) and Yemenis (eighth) logged a little over $6.3 billion in remittances last year.
Overall, remittances by the eight expatriate groups reached more than $26.6 billion in 2014, which is 91 per cent of the $29 billion total fund outflows from the UAE.
A look at the total remittance transactions in the UAE and other countries, where a large diaspora population can also be found, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain would show that Indians are still the biggest money senders.
Indians based in the GCC countries, United States and United Kingdom remitted $51.7 billion last year, followed by Filipinos in the second place ($19 billion), Egyptians ($15.4 billion), Pakistanis ($12.7 billion), Bangladeshis ($9.4 billion), Indonesians ($4.7 billion), Sri Lankans ($4.3 billion) and Yemenis ($3.2 billion).
There has been proposal to tax the remittances of expatriates working in the UAE, but money transfer operators are against the idea because it can only discourage foreigners from pursuing job opportunities in the country.
While the total volume of money transferred by expatriates from the UAE looks big, most senders don’t remit that much, sending only about $200 per transaction, which is one of the lowest in the world, according to Sudhir Kumar Shetty, president of UAE Exchange.
