extinguishing Western union - page 4.

LiteCoinGuy

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In Satoshi I Trust

Quote from: eerygarden on July 17, 2015, 05:47:10 PM

I am quite a fan of Andreas Antonopolous. I have seen numerous videos of him on YouTube and his enthusiasm for bitcoin is fantastic. I have heard him say before that bitcoin is a threat to Western union and in the latest video I watched of him (brilliant BTW) he again mentioned Western union.

"We are going to see bitcoin impacting remittances long before we see it impacting retail. We are not going shopping with bitcoin, we are taking out Western union."
https://youtu.be/SEJGFY0iDUw

He mentions that UK to the Philippines is a major remittance route and bitcoin ATMs are facilitating this today and hints at a 1% fee but I believe that bitcoin ATMs have higher margins than this. If this is happening, where is it happening and how can we speed it up?

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where do you see 1,5% ? i see a 3,9% fee + they can cheat you with the exchange rate.

NyeFe

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Quote from: eerygarden on July 18, 2015, 03:48:22 AM

Quote from: NyeFe on July 18, 2015, 03:37:20 AM

Quote from: eerygarden on July 18, 2015, 03:31:10 AM

1.5% is decent no?

1.5% is good, the point is, it could be pushed to 0.5% or even 0.1% at a profit for btc businesses.

So talk me through that. Whilst bitcoin is not spendable prevalently in the Phillipines there needs to be a third party for the son to change his bitcoins in to Philippine Pesos. A third party that wants to make some sort of profit and also a third party that is exposed, for a certain amount of time to the volatility of the value of bitcoin.

There's also the predicament of the nurse needing to convert here GBP in to bitcoins initially. Again this presumably requires a third party wanting to make a profit and that is exposed to risk. I know in the UK that you can buy pretty much instantly from a market place but you are looking at 4%+ for your purchase. Purchasing £100 from an exchange would probably be more expensive due to bank fees and exchange rates and would require a wait of 2-5 working days.

I am failing to see how bitcoin can compete with WU. Even if bitcoin was spendable prevalently in the Phillipines, the purchasing cost in the first place is more expensive than WU.

Of course the cheapest methods are the most time consuming. Let's look at a free service such as https://localbitcoins.com. This makes it possible to find local bitcoiners who are in need of someone willing to give them those precious pesos for bitcoins via face-to-face trade I.e. leaving bitcoins transaction fee, 0.0001 (£0.02, PHP 1.28, $0.03) or 0.00000000, in the picture. Now you can either hold those coins yourself or directly redirect them to the recipient (who only needs to repeat this process to complete the circle) There's nothing more I can say in regards to bitcoins price volatility; it could either come as an advantage or disadvantage.

eerygarden

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Quote from: NyeFe on July 18, 2015, 03:37:20 AM

Quote from: eerygarden on July 18, 2015, 03:31:10 AM

1.5% is decent no?

1.5% is good, the point is, it could be pushed to 0.5% or even 0.1% at a profit for btc businesses.

So talk me through that. Whilst bitcoin is not spendable prevalently in the Phillipines there needs to be a third party for the son to change his bitcoins in to Philippine Pesos. A third party that wants to make some sort of profit and also a third party that is exposed, for a certain amount of time to the volatility of the value of bitcoin.

There's also the predicament of the nurse needing to convert here GBP in to bitcoins initially. Again this presumably requires a third party wanting to make a profit and that is exposed to risk. I know in the UK that you can buy pretty much instantly from a market place but you are looking at 4%+ for your purchase. Purchasing £100 from an exchange would probably be more expensive due to bank fees and exchange rates and would require a wait of 2-5 working days.

I am failing to see how bitcoin can compete with WU. Even if bitcoin was spendable prevalently in the Phillipines, the purchasing cost in the first place is more expensive than WU.

NyeFe

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Quote from: eerygarden on July 18, 2015, 03:31:10 AM

1.5% is decent no?

1.5% is good, the point is, it could be pushed to 0.5% or even 0.1% to 0.04% at a profit for some btc businesses.

eerygarden

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I want to understand how it can be as low as 1%

Using UK to Phillipines as an example there are two conversions.
1. GBP to bitcoin
2. Bitcoin to Phillipine Peso

Todays exchange rate is 1 GBP = 70.5682 PHP

So the nurse working in the UK wanting to send £100 home to family in the Philipines would like her son to get as close to 7,056.82 PHP as possible.

I was going to write about the two conversion costs necessary, but it kind of seems unnecessary now that I have seen WU's cost seems to be around 1.5%

1.5% is decent no?

redhawk979

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Everytime I see a Western Union death thread, it fails to point out that WU has been experiencing record growth and profits over the past few years, so Bitcoin hasn't been making any sort of dent in it.

Jhacker

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Quote from: eerygarden on July 17, 2015, 05:47:10 PM

I am quite a fan of Andreas Antonopolous. I have seen numerous videos of him on YouTube and his enthusiasm for bitcoin is fantastic. I have heard him say before that bitcoin is a threat to Western union and in the latest video I watched of him (brilliant BTW) he again mentioned Western union.

"We are going to see bitcoin impacting remittances long before we see it impacting retail. We are not going shopping with bitcoin, we are taking out Western union."
https://youtu.be/SEJGFY0iDUw

He mentions that UK to the Philippines is a major remittance route and bitcoin ATMs are facilitating this today and hints at a 1% fee but I believe that bitcoin ATMs have higher margins than this. If this is happening, where is it happening and how can we speed it up?

My site www.morsecoin.com is up and does exactly this, for only a .5% fee. It is in beta but the basic functionality is there. Private keys are handled locally and are not stored or sent across the internet. The only place they reside is in the form field itself. And there is no risk of sending bitcoin to the wrong address because the recipient must confirm it with their private key. There is no longer any need for Western Union or any wire service for anyone using bitcoin.

If you want to help speed it up I could use help marketing it and would be open to a revenue sharing arrangement. Hit me up at [email protected]

MarketNeutral

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What do you do, MoneyGram? Join the fight against WU and adopt Bitcoin as a means of remittance? Or go down the same dead-end path as WU?

MarketNeutral

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Quote from: ransomer on July 17, 2015, 09:05:29 PM

Quote from: MarketNeutral on July 17, 2015, 08:41:50 PM

Quote from: Alley on July 17, 2015, 08:26:55 PM

People trust western union. Right now most people don't think bitcoin is safe.

Ironic.

Not really.

In a well-regulated western country - losing access or getting scammed out of ones money in a bank account (without getting the full amount refunded by the bank) happens very very very rarely... in fact in my entire life I have never heard about a single incident in my country...

People losing access to or getting scammed out of ones bitcoin is much much much much higher occurrence.

...

So, obviously for now bitcoins are much more unsafe.

"But that is because people are dumb and do not jump through hoops to keep their btcs safe"....

yeah maybe, but that is not a legitimate argument. If this is meant to be an improvement - it should be an improvement... not make things harder and unsafe etc.

You're comparing apples to oranges, but I suspect you know this.

Banks function differently from bitcoin. Very differently. Identity theft, wire fraud, money laundering, and other crimes exist within the banking system. Likewise, they can exist under bitcoin. You say, "But that is because people are dumb and do not jump through hoops to keep their btcs safe." To which I could make the same argument about the people who have lost fortunes under the banking system.

The famous UNIX quote is fitting:
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.
Replace UNIX with Bitcoin and it still makes sense.

qwep

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i havent used western union in ages, what is % they charge to send money to other countries like an average?

newb4now

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Quote from: eerygarden on July 17, 2015, 05:47:10 PM

I am quite a fan of Andreas Antonopolous. I have seen numerous videos of him on YouTube and his enthusiasm for bitcoin is fantastic. I have heard him say before that bitcoin is a threat to Western union and in the latest video I watched of him (brilliant BTW) he again mentioned Western union.

"We are going to see bitcoin impacting remittances long before we see it impacting retail. We are not going shopping with bitcoin, we are taking out Western union."
https://youtu.be/SEJGFY0iDUw

He mentions that UK to the Philippines is a major remittance route and bitcoin ATMs are facilitating this today and hints at a 1% fee but I believe that bitcoin ATMs have higher margins than this. If this is happening, where is it happening and how can we speed it up?

I think he is right, but I doubt there are any ATM's with fees as low as 1%.

Due to ATM cost, leasing fees for their location and regulatory expenses I suspect fees would need to be a lot higher

There are far cheaper ways to use BTC without involving ATMs

ransomer

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Quote from: MarketNeutral on July 17, 2015, 08:41:50 PM

Quote from: Alley on July 17, 2015, 08:26:55 PM

People trust western union. Right now most people don't think bitcoin is safe.

Ironic.

Not really.

In a well-regulated western country - losing access or getting scammed out of ones money in a bank account (without getting the full amount refunded by the bank) happens very very very rarely... in fact in my entire life I have never heard about a single incident in my country...

People losing access to or getting scammed out of ones bitcoin is much much much much higher occurrence.

...

So, obviously for now bitcoins are much more unsafe.

"But that is because people are dumb and do not jump through hoops to keep their btcs safe"....

yeah maybe, but that is not a legitimate argument. If this is meant to be an improvement - it should be an improvement... not make things harder and unsafe etc.

MarketNeutral

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Quote from: Alley on July 17, 2015, 08:26:55 PM

People trust western union. Right now most people don't think bitcoin is safe.

Ironic.

Alley

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People trust western union. Right now most people don't think bitcoin is safe.

aso118

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★Nitrogensports.eu★

Quote from: gogxmagog on July 17, 2015, 07:18:55 PM

Quote from: NyeFe on July 17, 2015, 07:02:31 PM

Although Bitcoin does seem to be some sort of obstacle for WU, couldn't Ripple (XRP) be a simple and efficient solution for them? Their users could be given XRP which would be redeemable at any of their outlets...

WU would still charge exorbitant fees. That's what they are all about. Their dependance upon huge fees IS their business model. BTC should, and probably will, destroy them. Good riddance to bad trash!

There are multiple regulations around know your customer, anti-money laundering, etc, which these companies have to comply with. A big chunk of their costs is in relation to these regulations. Having said that, Bitcoin will still make the process much more efficient.

gogxmagog

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Ad maiora!

Quote from: NyeFe on July 17, 2015, 07:02:31 PM

Although Bitcoin does seem to be some sort of obstacle for WU, couldn't Ripple (XRP) be a simple and efficient solution for them? Their users could be given XRP which would be redeemable at any of their outlets...

WU would still charge exorbitant fees. That's what they are all about. Their dependance upon huge fees IS their business model. BTC should, and probably will, destroy them. Good riddance to bad trash!

NyeFe

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Although Bitcoin does seem to be some sort of obstacle for WU, couldn't Ripple (XRP) be a simple and efficient solution for them? Their users could be given XRP which would be redeemable at any of their outlets...

knowhow

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the only way to wester union to remain in the market and create a crypto currency propia fixed value, which does not happen with other crypto thus would avoid the high rates and could stay in business otherwise already began to lose customers and soon will be asked to close .

gentlemand

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Welt Am Draht

Their rates are despicable but surely a fair chunk of the cost is down to having to comply with local laws and probably bribing their way into being allowed to operate in certain areas.

As we've seen with Uber, these disruptive companies are delighted to ignore laws wherever possible. You might just be able to get away with that in the taxi world. When it comes to money they're going to hit the buffers pretty rapidly once they get beyond the minnow stage.

unamis76

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WU is up for replacement ASAP... many services are already facilitating fund transactions across boarders with Bitcoin for a very small fee, we've had examples of such companies on the forum in the past. And when people are literate enough to fiddle with Bitcoin themselves, costs will reduce, and the advantages comparing to WU will be immense and will make people save a lot of money.

Enough of remittance empire for these companies

Topic: extinguishing Western union - page 4. (Read 3274 times)