The paper casts some doubts on contemporary initiatives to formalise remittance channels by focusing on particular dynamics of the informal ‘malayisha’ system on the South Africa/Zimbabwe remittance corridor. It stresses the social embedded character of ‘omalayisha’ in migrant labour societies by demonstrating that the system is built on strong social and community relations of friendship, neighbourhood, kinship and referrals, and the development of strategic networks of state officials. It also seeks to draw parallels between the historical movement of remittances from the cities to rural societies and the contemporary system of ‘omalayisha’. The argument suggests that ‘omalayisha’ are inherently part of a contemporary worker-peasant society after the relocation and expansion of urban livelihoods to South African cities, and that their position in migrant labour societies extend beyond mere labour reproduction to accumulation and survival, and the question of identity.