How can someone break into the Money Service Business—especially for business payments between developed and developing nations?

To start a Money Transfer Business, needless to say you need to have the domain knowledge. It may seem trivial, but considering it is a $500+ Billion business, there is a reason why there are few players in this eco-system.

There are many factors to consider before entering into this business, the first and foremost is understanding licensing and legal framework under which you would be required to operate. This means, grasping to a great degree the regulatory framework in the remittance corridors you would be working with, i.e. the sending country and the receiving country.

In addition to the domain knowledge, you need Capital. Without capital, you are essentially running a very small operation of taking client money and then transferring it across. Your limits would be breached daily, and there would not be much money made.

If you have your Regulatory Framework knowledge and Capital taken care of, you would need a proper MTO software. By proper I imply, a system that has all the relevant controls, etc. built-in. Controls like Agent Risk Limits, Anti-Money Laundering, Extended Know Your Customer Modules, Treasury/FX Modules, Agent/Master-Agent Models, etc.

You can refer to the following answers to obtain more knowledge:

• How difficult is it to penetrate the African (Africa) Money Transfer Business?
• What opportunities exist for US or Europe based start-ups in the Remittances vertical?
  
• How does a Money Transfer start-up expand its business in other countries?
  
• What is the future of workers remittance from the Middle East to countries like Philippines, India, Vietnam, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc.?
  
• If I am a licensed MSB in outside the US, can we have an online website and run our own money transfer from the US to our country?
  
• Remittances: For online money transfer, specifically from the US to abroad, how is the AML-KYC responsibility laid out?