Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government has taken to meet the commitment made by the G20 heads of state in the final declaration of the Cannes Summit in November 2011 to reduce the average cost of transferring remittances to 5 per cent by 2014; and what assessment she made of the likelihood of the UK meeting this commitment.

The UK is contributing to the achievement of the 5% target by supporting the development of payments infrastructure, with a focus on digitisation to reduce transaction costs.

We also support piloting and scaling up mobile banking through a Technology Programme for Branchless Banking which is co-funded with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Master Card Foundation and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). As of December 2013, the Programme has helped an estimated 31 million poor people globally to access financial services.