A relatively new service offered by the U-S Post Office is gaining popularity fast in Iowa. Marta Cardena at the Muscatine Post Office says customers can make wire transfers of money, sending cash safely to a destination in another town or even across the border to Mexico. It’s called Dinero Seguro, in English “Sure Money.” Postal money orders have always been popular, and Dinero Seguro is an electronic version of the process. She says the Post Office has offered the service since 2000 and many ask if there’s a hidden charge their families will have to pay to get the money. Just this week millions of plaintiffs in a class-action suit began getting compensation for hidden fees in such wire-transfer money orders sent to Mexico, but Cardenas says the Post Office has never charged such fees. She says the Post Office has an agreement with a big Mexican bank, and customers don’t need to have an account there, just go to any branch with a confirmation number from the sender here, a code known in Spanish as “la clave.” There’s a thriving Hispanic population in Muscatine, and Cardenas says it may be one of the largest in the state. Cardenas has worked at the window for ten years and says when she moved to Muscatine 32 years ago, she knew almost every Hispanic family in town but has seen the population really grow the past eight to 10 years. Muscatine is second in the state in revenues for the Sure Money program. Only the Sioux City post office does more of the transactions, Cardenas says, because it has the state’s largest Mexican population.
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