At the Roosevelt Avenue branch of Citibank in Queens, where there are long lines of Hispanic immigrants, the word was beginning to spread earlier this month.

“I have told all of my friends about this,” an illegal immigrant named Monica, from Ecuador, said in Spanish.

After years of sending money to family through wire services, the Jackson Heights housewife said she was excited about Citibank offering the transfers for less.

“There are a lot of people that need to send a lot of money because they are building houses there, and to be able to send money for $5 is excellent,” she said.

Money transfers sent by immigrants to their home countries have reached record highs, and banks, supported by the Inter-American Development Bank, are tapping into the remittance market. Some, such as Citibank, are appealing to poor immigrants, who are often in America illegally, by accepting consular identification cards to open accounts and linking with banks in foreign countries.

Citibank recently launched a new program that offers both development opportunities and potential financial benefits for Ecuador and its emigrants. In partnership with an Ecuadorian bank, Citibank is offering transfers of up to $3,000 for a flat fee of $5. Compared with one of the wire services, such as Delgado or Western Union, where sending $100 would often cost more than that, the savings to the customer are immense.

Moreover, in linking with Banco Solidario, which specializes in providing services to microentrepeneurs who would traditionally not qualify for loans, Citibank is doing more than offering low-cost remittances: It is creating a potential multiplier effect, where money sent home can be used for further development.

“A remittance is not just a transfer,” Citigroup’s global microfinance director, Robert Annibale, said in a phone interview from London. “It’s what’s on both ends of that money, the billions and billions of dollars. There are vibrant families on both ends that need wider access to financial services.”

With more than $30 billion sent in remittances to Latin America in 2004, and $3.5 billion from New York alone, it’s a potentially enormous and relatively untapped market. Despite increasing interest by commercial banks, more than three-quarters of transfers are still sent through wire services, according to a 2004 study by the Inter-American Development Bank. Of those sending money, 32% are illegal immigrants, according to the study.

The Patriot Act placed new regulations on banks. Still, immigrants, regardless of legal status, can open accounts with documents such as a passport or a consular identification card. Citibank has gone to great lengths to attract such immigrants, offering perks, including international phone cards and sponsoring financial education classes with local community organizations.

They’re not the only ones angling for a share of the market. Bank of America, for example, offers free remittances to Mexico, a program they advertise with a huge Spanish-language billboard in Queens. Credit unions are also increasingly offering transfers.

Banco Solidario, supported by the Boston-based Accion International, is not new to the market for immigrant services. In a program in Spain funded in part by the Inter-American Development Bank, it offers free remittances and provides special mortgages and savings and loans programs. In a telephone interview from Ecuador, the director of microcredit for Banco Solidario, Sonia Bravo, said, in Spanish, “We enable the families of immigrants to optimize their resources in productive ends and not in unnecessary costs.”