Topic: Hello Bitcoin, Goodbye Western Union? (Read 1428 times)

I think you'd enjoy this article that was tweeted by Bill Gates himself today http://qz.com/218988/how-to-manage-all-your-financial-affairs-from-a-20-mobile-phone/#b07g02t20w14

Fee is good for the banker and bank.

If you are trying to cut them off, watch your back.

It's about time that Wester Union stops rippin-off people with their 10% fee, that is just too much and they would not be attacked by Bitcoin if they would keep fees at like 2%, which is high enough.
Cmon if i send 1000€ to my granny they take me away 100€, sick man.

They will try to integrate it eventually. It will probably be too late by then. The thrid world and their benefactors int he west will have realized how badly they were screwed over by fees.

Not hard to believe.  BTC volume already exceeds WU.

WU must exchange in the third world country at the "official exchange rates".  BTC may exchange at the actual street rate, and this can mean 2-10x the delivered money value. 

Given such a reality, exchanges fees on BTC are totally irrelevant.

Hard to believe the western union lobby will easily let BTC to take over their business.

Western Union is fiat money and this fact very fat

Finding the right buyer, with the right premium rates can be hard on LocalBitcoins. How much did you paid as premium? And how was the overall experience with LocalBitcoins? Everything went smoothly?

I never use WU again. When I learn that there is a company that buys and sell bitcoin in my country. The rate is almost the same as bitstamp and they directly deposit to my bank account within an hour.

I used Western Union about twice a month sending cash to Brazil. Then I tried LocalBitcoins.com once. I will never use Western Union again.

It's all about relative ease and cost.  I think that what an enterprising small business bitcoin exchange guy would do in Zimbawee or where ever, is make his service seriously competitive with the rival, Western Union.  That might mean he'd see to it that total fees were 10% or less, compared to WE 17%.  There's no reason for him to get them down to 1-2%.

Well, not that terrible, you would lose some in the conversion to another currency anyway. I guess it's not easy to do better. Also the minimum fees are ridiculous.

What about exchange fees?

One has to covert fiat currency into bitcoin, transfer the bitcoin abroad, and then their relative back home must convert the bitcoin back into local currency.

Currency exchanges usually charge around 2-3% and times this by two and you're looking at 6% in exchange fees plus the hassle of doing a double conversion.

WU is still generally more expensive, but I still don't see a good way of getting the fees to 1% or less.

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In Kenya, a bitcoin-based remittance provider named BitPesa is already creating the waves. So who knows? May be Africa will be the first to prove that Bitcoins can demolish the mighty WU.

Africa: Hello Bitcoin, Goodbye Western Union?
the Future of Remittance Could Be Digital

For African migrants, sending money back home comes at a high cost: they spend an average of 12.4 percent on transfer fees. Bitcoin entrepreneurs are now coming up with clever ways of bringing the cost of remittance down, all the way to zero. A risky endeavor or a smart fix?

Shaun Matsheza has gone through the process every month for over five years, ever since he came to the Netherlands. Armed with cash and a customer card, he shows up at Western Union's bright yellow desk to send money back home to Zimbabwe. The cost to do so is high: on average, about 15 percent of the total money transaction. "And if something suddenly arises, and my family needs 40 euros or so, I have to pay the minimum fee of 17 euros," says Matsheza, who is a journalist for Radio Netherlands Worldwide. "It can be ridiculous."

At the other end of the transaction, the process is not very convenient either. After Matsheza sends his mother a secret code, she or a sibling travels about half an hour into town to collect the money at the nearest Western Union agency.

Matsheza and his family are far from alone in acting out this monthly ritual. In fact, millions of people across the world do the same. Their mundane motions fuel the global economy; according to the World Bank, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa will receive 44 billion euros in remittance this year alone, which makes it one of the largest sources of income, far exceeding foreign aid.

Popular money transfer agents like Western Union or MoneyGram, whose services are cheaper than banks, handle a large part of these transactions to African countries. Yet their fees for sending money are outrageously high: an average of 12.4 percent. Like Shaun Matsheza, many migrants are reluctantly loyal customers. "I am always interested in alternatives," Matsheza says, "but it's not an easy problem to solve."

High-tech fix for low-tech communities

Techies believe that Bitcoin might be just what these migrants are looking for. Sending Bitcoin across borders and exchanging to and from the cryptocurrency is practically free of charge, and it doesn't require the interference of any bank or government.

Now if asking your cousin in the UK to start sending Bitcoins to your smartphone-less aunt in Uganda sounds less than genius, hold on- there's a few smart entrepreneurs who believe they've found ways to make this high-tech fix work in low-tech communities too.

READ MORE: http://allafrica.com/stories/201312230545.html