What's happening to money orders?

Low crude prices have led to a drop in remittances to India from the diaspora in the Gulf region

In obsessing over portfolio inflows and the much desired foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, analysts often overlook trends in our biggest source of dollar inflows — remittances. There could be reasons for this. For instance, unlike, say, portfolio flows on which there is daily data, quick numbers on remittances are not available. However, that doesn’t take away from the fact that the ebb and flow of transfers made by Indian expats is critical to the rupee.

For the last 10 years, India has been the world’s largest recipient of remittances and around half of India’s trade deficit every year has been