Jobs, decent housing, opportunities for education, good health and, interestingly enough, a phone to call relatives back home top the list.
Add the ability to send money to help relatives and you have a well-rounded catalogue of key immigrant priorities.
Labelled by economists as "money transfer payments" but more frequently called "remittances" by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Inter-American Development Bank, the funds being repatriated to every region of the world from the United States, Canada, Europe, and the United Kingdom in particular amount to about $200 billion each year.
In many countries – Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Guyana for
instance, remittances are key sources of foreign exchange.
In the English, French, Spanish and Dutch-speaking nations of the Caribbean it is a multi-billion-dollar business, surpassing the $5 billion mark, with the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, Guyana, Belize and Suriname (in that order) accounting for the lion's share. While it's not known how much money Barbadians around the world transfer to their relatives, some estimates put the figure at between US$50 and 80 million.
It's a market on which many of America's leading financial institutions are now focusing much of their attention these days.
One of them is Citibank, a premier international bank with branches or affiliated relationships in almost every member-state of the United Nations.
So, when Citibank joined forces in Brooklyn with New York Carib News on a recent weekday evening to hold the third in a community-outreach series of town meetings and seminars, about 200 Caribbean immigrant community leaders got the message. The judges, business executives and elected representatives, some of them Barbadians among others, heard about the bank's interest in reaching out to immigrants with services tailor-made for "underbanked" and "unbanked", people with limited or no ongoing relationships with a commercial institution like Citibank.
"Money transfer is among the top five things that an immigrant needs when he or she comes to this country," said Thien Tran, a business development manager in Citigroup's Micro finance operation.
Financial service
Right now the leading players in the remittance market include Western Union and Money Gram. But that may soon change.
"We want to offer this financial service to immigrants and that way it is an entrance into a more inclusive banking relationship," Trans explained.
The bottom line in the remittance equation is straightforward: if Citibank were chosen by more and more immigrants to send money back home, it could lead to a more structured and mutually beneficial partnership with immigrants in the United States and their relatives back home.
"We want to provide a safe, economical and efficient method for our customers to send money and also to be a part of the consumer banking products that we already offer," she explained.
Town meeting
But the two-hour community town meeting at the Brooklyn Downtown Marriott didn't deal exclusively with the world of remittances. Entitled Building Entrepreneurship, it drew attention to the importance of small business to the economies of rich and poor nations alike, personal finance, and the crucial need for individuals to invest in their future.
For instance, Niles Stewart, area business banking manager, spoke about the growth of small firms and the approach Citibank has taken to establish strong ties with them.
Jacqueline Arrington, Citi's northeastern region director in the community relation operation, said that a key goal was not only linking Citigroup with local communities but also building better neighbourhoods "where we do business".
She described it as "the foundation of our community commitment" in Brooklyn and elsewhere in the city. Indeed, around the country and the world.
A week earlier Arrington had stressed the value of home ownership when the bank and Carib News held a similar session in Queens.
Jerry Mackey, financial executive at Citi's Flatbush Avenue Financial Centre in Brooklyn conducted an interactive session on personal finance. He did something somewhat similar at the inaugural seminar in Manhattan.
Michael Flanigan, Citibank's community relations director and one of Citibank's most recognisable faces and voices in communities throughout the City, was chairman of the seminar.