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Hawala/IVTS Networks

• Hawala and Hundi: vehicles for the long-distance transmission of value - by Roger Ballard

  An uptodate overview of the roots of Hawala and Hundi-style transjurisdictional value systems, and of their contemporary modus operandi.

• Risk, regulation and the challenge of compliance in the operation of contemporary transjurisdictional Informal Value Transfer Systems - by Roger Ballard

  Delivered at The International Money Transfer and Migrant Remittances Summit, Rome, 2nd – 3rd July 2009, this paper explores the sources of the competive advantages which 'informal' value transfer systems currently enjoy in comparision with their more formally constituted rivals, and in so doing begins to query the kinfd of regulatory regime with which value transfer operators in general might be more appropriately be required to comply.

  Global Value Transfer Systems in an Era of Financial Volatility: meeting the logistical challenge - by Roger Ballard

• Presented at a workshop at the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation, this explores the logistical solutions deployed within contemporary Hawala-style value transmission systems. It suggests that those frustrated by the lack of an effective global payments system for retial customers may well find that they have much to learn from the procedures and practices which have been developed by the Exchange Houses of Dubai.

• Response by the Director of CASAS to HM Treasury's Consultation on The Regulation of Money Services Businesses
  Roger Ballard dissects the Treasury proposals for upgrading the UK's current regulartory structure for MSBs in the light of his knowlledge of the operation of conteporary IVTS/Hawala system, as well as an an analyis of developments in the USA which has been set out by Nikos Passas in a recently published article entitled "Fighting Terror with Error: the counter-productive regulation of informal value transfers". Dr. Ballard reaches equally sceptical conclusions about UK regulatory efforts in this field.

• Hawala: criminal haven or vital financial network? - by Roger Ballard
  Within days of the 9/11 attacks, American authorities prepared to wage war on terror on both financial and military fronts. As the Taliban fled Kabul in the face of advancing American forces, U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill announced he was forging a global alliance through which ‘we are going to pursue the financiers of terrorism like they’ve never been pursued before’. His target, however, was as shadowy as al-Qaida itself: the informal system of international money transfer known as Hawala.

• Coalitions of Reciprocity and the Maintenance of Financial Integrity within Informal Value Transmission Systems: The operational dynamics of contemporary hawala networks - by Roger Ballard
  A comprehensive overview of the development of contemporary IVTS networks operating within a hawala format, exploring the way in which coalitions of reciprocity are utilized to underwrite system security within such networks, such that they work smoothly and efficiently despite the absence of external administrative and legal regulation. Challenging widespread fears that such networks are acutely vulnerable to the financiers of terrorism and those repatriating the profits of drug smuggling, the paper concludes that coalitions of reciprocity owe their competitive advantage over formally consituted banks not because of their inherent criminality, but because they provide a more cost-effective means of facilitating long-distance value-transmission than the sclerotic and top-heavy administrative procedures routinely deployed by their competitors.

• Delivering Migrant Remittances: the logistical challenge - by Roger Ballard
  As globalization has led to ever higher levels of labour mobility, so the volume of funds remitted to their families by workers employed in countries far distant from their homes has increased by leaps and bounds. The total volume of such transfers currently amounts to over $100 billion per annum, the greater part of which flows from economically advanced regions in the West and North to developing countries in the East and South. Delivering those funds swiftly, reliably and cheaply to relatively remote destinations opens up new opportunities for the financial services industry, but also represents a major logistical challenge.

• Hawala Transformed: Remittance-driven Transnational Networks in the post-Imperial economic order - by Roger Ballard
  A comprehensively revised version of a paper presented to a World Bank Conference on Migrant Remittances:development impact, opportunities for the financial sector and future prospects.

• The Principles and Practice of Hawala Banking - by Roger Ballard
  This is an edited version of an expert report prepared for the de fence in one of the many 'Hawala'/money laundering prosecutions currently being mounted by UK Customs and Excise.

• Processes of consolidation and settlement in remittance-driven Hawala transactions - by Roger Ballard
  Presented to a World Bank Conference on Migrant Remittances:development impact, opportunities for the financial sector and future prospects. London, 9th - 10th October 2003.