This is Planet Money from NPR.
About a year ago,
Larissa Vargas was sitting at her desk at the headquarters of the largest bank in Honduras.
She was watching this flow of money come in from overseas, and it was picking up.
It was gradual.
It was gradual.
Then over the next weeks, then months,
that flow of money from overseas into Honduras continued to intensify.
She was like, what is going on here?
She was...
Surprised.
I mean, this keeps going.
Larissa works at Banco Ficosa.
She is the remittance manager.
She's been working in that department for 20 years.
She handles the more than a billion dollars that come into bank accounts from other countries,
mostly the U.S.
through all kinds of channels like Western Union and MoneyGram.
In her years at the bank, she's seen some changes.
Like as more hundreds have moved to the United States, remittances have grown a lot.