One target of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is that by 2030, remittance fees should be less than 3%, and total fees to send and receive money between a pair of countries should be no more than 5%. Some researchers believe that to be truly affordable, the first goal should be even less than 3%.
The International Monetary Fund has estimated that reaching this target could generate $32bn (£26bn), even apart from the direct-cost savings.
This is because remittances have such powerful knock-on effects for the economy, and people tend to send more in remittances when fees are lower.
Yet the world is far off this target. According to the World Bank, the global average is 6.2%, over double the target.
There may be some situations where this makes a lot of sense, particularly involving currency manipulation. For example, in Argentina, the official exchange rate was much less favorable than the actual (black market) exchange rate. Monero could enable someone to sell at the more favorable exchange rate locally, rather than relying the transfer provider in the source country to do it.
However, it’s important to consider potential market effects if this is done at scale. For some people, it could work, but probably not yet on such a large scale.
The point is not to be the “rational economist” who doesn’t pick up money off the ground because someone else would have picked it up if it was really there.