El Salvador’s Bitcoin Adoption To Cut Western Union Revenue, Increase Populat...
Money services providers could lose $400 million a year in commissions for remittances thanks to bitcoin, increasing Salvadorans’ money.El Salvador’s bitcoin adoption will increase the wealth of its people while diminishing the commission fees paid out to intermediaries, CNBC reported. President Nayib Bukele estimates that companies like Western Union and MoneyGram will lose about $400 million a year in remittance fees due to the country’s bitcoin adoption.Cross-border remittance inflows account for a substantial portion of El Salvador’s gross domestic product (GDP), nearly 25%. Major....
Related News
The Republic of El Salvador has made many headlines this week as the country adopted bitcoin as legal tender on Tuesday and became the first-known nation-state to purchase the leading crypto asset. A recent report details that remittance providers like Moneygram and Western Union could lose up to $400 million annually if the Chivo wallet is used more. Furthermore, the creator of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee has written an opinion piece about why Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele announced the bitcoin tender law at the Miami bitcoin conference.
Chivo Wallet Could Hurt Remittance....
In the world of cash-transfers, few other companies come to mind as instantaneously as Western Union. If you’ve walked in a convenience store anywhere between the west and east coast of the United States, you’ve probably seen a banner for Western Union. The remittance provider is currently facing a preliminary antitrust inquiry as the EU examines allegations of Western Union intentionally driving rivals out of business. Allegedly, Western Union is giving their retail outlet partners contracts with exclusivity contracts in them which don’t allow other cash-transfer services to operate....
Western Union Chief Information Officer John "David" Thompson was interviewed by Coindesk this week and made some very revealing comments about Bitcoin, and its future in global monetary transfer. Many know Western Union as the world's largest personal monetary transfer corporation, founded way back in 1851. Operating in 220 countries worldwide, it generated almost $800M last year in net income, which is down over 20% from 2012. I wonder why it is down over $200M all of the sudden? Also read: Digital Currency Advocate: What Western Union CEO Is Missing. Western Union CIO: Bitcoin doesn't....
As new U.S. government measures that impose restrictions on remittances to Cuba becomes effective after November 22, Western Union, which has been operating in the island nation since 1999, will close shop. The new rule, which was published on October 27, gave Western Union 30 days to implement new restrictions. The new rule is likely to increase the appeal of crypto assets as Cubans are now expected to find a suitable alternative in a very short space of time. Targeted Sanctions At the time of the initial U.S. government announcement, the global remittances giant had promised to find a....
In an interview with Bloomberg, CEO Hikmet Ersek expressed a willingness to incorporate bitcoin into Western Union’s portfolio of world currencies “once bitcoin is regulated like a proper currency.” Perhaps even the world’s premier money transmitting service is coming around to bitcoin. But Ersek seems to find this a significant “if.” Western Union is the world’s largest money transmitting service. It deploys over 500,000 agents and 100,000 ATMs internationally. In an interview with Bloomberg, Ersek discussed the future of Western Union as it faces the spread and adoption of new....