BOSTON.- The Dominican community abroad paid, between 2000 and 2007, US$695.2 million to send remittances back home, said the economists Frank Valenzuela and Héctor Frias, president and executive director the non-government organization Quisqueya Foundation.

Considering the high amount, the organization called on president Leonel Fernandez to implement public policies to handle the "bancarization" of the remittances those Dominicans send, in order to lower the cost of sending money and facilitating the "financial democratization" for the senders as well as for the receivers in the country. This totals RD$17.9 billion annually, according to a Quisqueya Foundation study.

They said that according to Inter-American Development Bank studies, only 39.1 percent of the total remittances are sent through the Dominican financial system, which is aggravated by the fact that its cost is among the highest in Latin America.

Valenzuela and Frias said the remittances’ "bancarization" could be obtained through the active participation of the state-owned Reservas Bank, via such as opening offices in the main cities where the Dominican community abroad resides, installnig automatic tellers and other payment systems and developing microbanks in the main communities where the families of the emigrants reside.