Poni Card an express way to send cash to Mexico. In U.S., $30B to go to Latin America in '04.

GABRIELA RICO

No matter how tight her budget gets, Elia Garcia said, her money goes farther when she uses it to help her parents in Mexico.
"Whenever I have a little extra money and I send it to my parents. I'm never without," the 40-year-old said. "It's like when I give to the church, the money is doing some good."

Garcia, a native of El Limón, Jalisco, is among an estimated 10 million Latin American immigrants in the United States who are expected to send more than $30 billion to relatives back home this year, a figure contained in a recent report by the Inter-American Development Bank.

In Arizona, an estimated 535,119 immigrants will send $606 million to Latin America this year, the report said.

And with the help of a new service from American Cash Exchange Inc., which was started in response to the staggering amount of cash going south, Garcia, a teacher's aide, can send her parents money almost instantly. In the past, she mailed money orders, which took up to three weeks for her parents to receive, or relied on viajeros, drivers who deliver envelopes of cash into Mexico. Sometimes she would use a telegram service to wire the money, which took up to three days and cost $17.

Last month, Garcia became the first customer in Tucson to buy a Poni PIN Card and sent her 60-year-old mother and 80-year-old father 1,000 pesos, or about $88.

Similar to a prepaid long-distance card, the Poni is bought in the United States in denominations of 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000 pesos, said Eva Macias, marketing manager for Poni in Tucson.

The cost of the card is based on the current dollar-peso exchange rate and includes a $12 service charge for all denominations.

Each card has a personal identification number and includes a free five-minute phone call to Mexico for the purpose of giving the PIN to family members. With free Poni recipient cards widely available in Mexico, family members can access the pesos as soon as they have the PIN, Macias said. The service is available at 19,000 ATMs in Mexico, the company said.

Getting the PIN to family members is a bit of a problem for Garcia, whose parents, Carmen Pelayo and Luis Quintero, do not have a telephone. But with the help of a neighbor, she can get the PIN to them, she said.

Although her father was at first perplexed by the new system, Garcia said that after he used it, he preferred it over the telegram service because he didn't have to hassle with people asking for identification.

"There's no one to give him a hard time at the machine," Garcia said with a laugh. "He liked that."

Each month, Garcia tries to send an average of $150 to her parents for food and vitamins and to cover expenses they may have, she said.

Her sister, who lives in California, also sends money to her parents, and they are trying to save up enough for a telephone, Garcia said.

The wife and mother of four children, ages 12, 10, 7 and 5, said she's grateful to have the new system to send money home without paying the high fees charged by the big wire-transfer companies.

"With so much sacrifice with which we earn it, I'm glad more of it can go to them," Garcia said.

The Inter-American Development Bank survey covered 37 states and the District of Columbia. According to the survey, 42 percent of Latin American immigrants in Arizona expect to send money home this year The average number of payments is 11.2; the average payment is $240.