Has anyone read this news item.?
Iranian-born Ali Sarikhani, a friend of Tessa Jowell's husband David Mills, has set up the Tuxedo Blue Diamond card for people without bank accounts who have money to send abroad to friends or family.
Cash 'loaded' on to the cards will be accessible to duplicate cardholders in 900 locations across 100 countries worldwide.
But the launch of the scheme raises fresh doubts over the Government's claims that immigration boosts the country's gross domestic product by £4billion a year.
An annual £5.6billion worth of funds is transferred by immigrants out of the country, according to figures provided by the Department For International Development.
Andrew Green, of MigrationWatch UK, said: "The main beneficiaries are the immigrants, who are able to send home about £10million a day, not the host nation. It is a loss when that money leaves and we have to buy foreign capital to make it up. Freedom of movement of capital is right and proper but it is a loss that is often overlooked."
The new cards will be sold on buses and even ferries as migrants enter the country looking for work. Tuxedo is investing £5.1million in the scheme, advertising across a range of ethnic TV channels and in publications across Asia and Eastern Europe as it targets the lucrative immigrant market.
Migrants will be able to load their cards with up to £2,500 and then pay bills with the card, withdraw cash, send up to £200 a day abroad or order duplicate cards to be used for withdrawals by friends and family from cash machines abroad.
To set up a Tuxedo card, a UK-based customer need only provide a photocopy of a passport of any nationality. No bank account or credit check is required.
Mr Sarikhani and his fellow directors hope to make money by selling the cash cards for £9.95 and charging up to £1.50 in the UK for cash machine withdrawals and £2.25 abroad. Purchases with the card have a 2.95 per cent fee.
The 61-year-old businessman is a non-executive chairman of Tuxedo Money Solutions and donated £10,000 to Labour in 2001. A trained chartered accountant, he made his fortune in tax consultancy.
He and Tuxedo's chief executive officer, Andre Bischoff, were also involved in a successful buyout of Alpha Telecom, which has a lucrative share in the pre-paid telephone market favoured by immigrant workers in the UK.
Mr Sarikhani became a British citizen at the age of 23 and lives in a mansion close to Hampstead Heath in North London.
He became friends with Mr Mills when his company Edasco acquired CMM Corporate Services which was then run by the Culture Secretary's husband.
Answer:
Well if this is now the case - as your question suggest ...I then ask if the money is being sent abroad for families etc., are they cross checking to see that it has been declared and earned legally. Far too much money is being allowed to leave our country playing a big cost to our economy as is also jobs that are being posted abroad - whilst there are perfectly good people here to do such jobs. Make this point to your MP as many as possible is the only way to stem such a profiteering racket.
yes....no big deal..the money is leaving anyway
I heard he was really hot.
Know I didn't know about this.It's bl*ody outrageous
The rates of cost on withdrawal seem almost predatory when you think of someone in Somalia taking it to their local ATM, though, don't they?
We have the same problem here. An estimate came out that remittances from US based foreign nationals to Latin America will be $100 Billion by 2010. Yet that is never taken into account by those calculating the benefit/cost of a prospective amnesty for illegals here. (Not that all of it is from illegals, but a sizable portion is.)
i have always thought the government don't give enough attention to stem the tide of the out flow of money that leaves this country each month to people who live here but send money back to their relatives at home// it must run into BILLIONS so when is it going to be stopped Mr Brown?
Sound like another scam, that at the end of the day, the tax payer will end up paying for in one way or another, God bless democracy and open world trading, I'll tell you now "no good will come of it for the British tax payer"
Anything which has somebody from Migrationwatch commenting on it has to be a pile of cack.
The immigration information post by website user , MyTend.com not guarantee correctness