Western Union Faces Legal Scrutiny In EU Over Business Practices
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....
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For many in the bitcoin industry, Western Union is the epitome of everything that's wrong with traditional finance - one might say it's the Blockbuster Video of a financial world that is on the verge of a Netflix solution. As a result of this complicated history, bitcoin commentators took aim at Western Union's latest act in the digital currency space: its public comment on New York's controversial BitLicense proposal. Published last week as part of a release of more than 3,700 comments that included big-name brands like Amazon and Walmart, it was Western Union's submission that perhaps....
At the Money20/20 conference in Copenhagen, Western Union announced the launch of the WU EDGE platform, designed to provide increased transaction channels and analytics opportunities for Western Union small and middle-sized business clients. The Enterprise Digital Global Exchange (EDGE) is the new Western Union business-to-business digital platform which will make buying and selling overseas much more seamless and cheap. Given Western Union’s scale, the platform aims help business owners in the developing and developed worlds alike. Speaking to the potential impact of the platform, Kerry....
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....
In what could probably be called the surprise of the century, financial services company Western Union says Bitcoin just isn't quite ready for international money transfers - Western Union's big business. A huge surprise, indeed. It all went down at a Western Union conference that took place recently. "We're a long, long way from sending momma in Mexico $240 each month or a Somali family in a refugee camp $200 each month in bitcoin that is held in a wallet for conversion to local fiat currency and spending as needed," said MSB Compliance president Jay Postma. "The infrastructure and market....
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....