In the late1990s,although the Somalian state had collapsed,the growth in telecommunications facilities, including expensive satellite telephones, expanded rapidly. Herders and border traders, who had little access to formal banking institutions, and the Somali diaspora in the West and the Middle East, used Internet, fax, and telephone services to transfer remittances home. This informal hawala (“transfer” in Arabic) avoided the need to carry large amounts of cash. In 2001–03, much of this system, tainted by accusations of terrorist links, was shut down by pressure from the U.S. government (Little 2003:138–144).