Bitcoin And Consumer Economies in the non-Western World
In the common discourse, Bitcoin is often treated as a revolutionary new concept in how we handle our funds, substituting irreversible finance with reversible, automatic with prepaid, asymmetrical with symmetrical and debt-based with equity-based. Bitcoin promoters often hail these aspects as a necessary shift in our economic culture while detractors....
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At the eighth annual Western Union Consumer Protection & Compliance Conference held September 18th, 2013, Jay Postma, CAMS, President, MSB Compliance Inc.and Scott Apodaca, CAMS, Senior Manager, Western Union gave a presentation entitled "Emerging Risk of Digital Currency (E-Currency / Bitcoin / Liberty Reserve) [PDF link]." The conference was billed as the go-to place to "Stay up-to-date and learn about the latest consumer protection efforts, regulations, enforcement trends and strategies used to detect and combat fraud, terrorist financing and money laundering." Conference registration....
While MMT may be the de facto policy of rich Western governments, applying it to developing economies could be disastrous.
A recent blog post titled “When Banks Become the Lawmakers” sparked a realization that banks, and companies that provide financial services in general, are now doing much more than that. In a utopian world of free markets, the interests of any private corporation including banks would need to balance out against the interests of the consumers. In today’s world of continuously growing government, however, the now 3-way scale is heavily skewed against the consumer. The Problem: The debts in the western economies have reached levels unlike anything in history. As a lifetime of work by Martin....
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....