Bitcoin Forum

The short answer is that Western Union doesn’t need Bitcoin in its current infantile state. Conversely, if and when Bitcoin reaches adulthood the world would no longer need Western Union.
I really liked the above statement and this is one of the fewest articles that I really enjoyed reading on cointelegraph[1].

[1] https://cointelegraph.com/news/why-doesnt-western-union-or-moneygram-use-bitcoin#

Bitcoin encroaches more on WU's business model than anything to be honest, they really can't use it without admiting that Bitcoin is better and undermining their own quality of service to be completely honest. Something like that is just going to be absolutely insane for most companies' reputation, and even if they don't need it, it completely damages their own business model.

There's no money for Western Union or Moneygram to make by transacting Bitcoin. WU's fees are super high, they couldn't come close to competing with Coinbase or non-bank methods of bitcoin transaction.

Majority of the people using WU are lower income and exchanging money across borders. It would make more sense for these people to use bitcoin INSTEAD of WU, it would be cheaper and easier for them if there were bitcoin ATMs (that accept cash) nearby.

Thank you for sharing with us this article, I didn't know that people are able to make WU transfers within the Viber mobile application, for WU that is not accepting bitcoin I think is a big mistake especially people would enjoy spending their bitcoin for instant cash like withdrawing bitcoin from a bitcoin debit card.

I would say that when bitcoin really takes hold we will eventually see the end of western union and moneygram.

because western union or moneygram
1 is high fee, is compare use local bank
2 is very long time to receive , in use local exchanger use local bank is very fast

so all people prefered choose local bank, to bitcoin transaction

Bitcoin is competition for that services Chinise have bought Moneygram,fresh news,maybe one day thay will accept bitcoin.For sure Chinise will use blockchain for money transfer

I doubt this is going to happen in our lifetimes, and probably not at all.

Bitcoin is only a $12 billion market.  That's too damn small to be using it as a worldwide currency.  Way too damn small.

This is a stupid topic (no offense to the OP). Why should Western Union and Moneygram use Bitcoin, when it is a competitor to their business. If people start using Bitcoins for remittance, then the revenues for WU will drop.

none of them care about bitcoin. it is like saying why a big fast food restaurant franchise like McDonald don't care about a food cart two blocks over selling hot dogs to random people on the street. and right now bitcoin is like that food cart and has small capacity too (block size or TPS limit and also adoption) but unlike that food cart it has lots of potential to grow much bigger.

there is a big difference between western union, moneygram and bitcoin, they are competitor to each other, Western union and moneygram have their own business and they will try to increase their own business more and more and have no concern with bitcoin. one is the big difference is that western union and money gram are legal as they only transfer money from one country to another and do not have their own currencies, while bitcoin itself is a digital currency and still they do not have the support of governments. bu in future we can hope so.

Sorry MMA, but I need to correct you here.

Bitcoin is absolutely a competitor with Western Union and Moneygram. In fact, any method for sending money to a different part of the world is a competitive [business/channel/alternative] to traditional money wiring services.

Bitcoin offers a HUGE advantage over the high costs, high administrative effort, and slow timing associated with completing a global transaction via Wester Union and Moneygram.

Perhaps you're just making an opinion to get a post in, but let's be honest. There should be no surprise that bitcoin is overcoming Western Union in transaction volume.

Bitcoin still consider as risky currency means that bitcoin value still unstable. So bitcoin need more time to reach that point on the future

By using bitcoin will help bitcoin development and existense around the world which will lead into stabilization value for bitcoin

Bitcoin is a direct competitor to their business model and I'm very sure they would be concerned about it, adding it would made them look foolish because any jack can easily copy their business model.

Yes, I absolutely agree with that!
That being said, WU up until now are still enjoying their very high remittance fees.
I hope one day, people will be educated enough on how to handle digital money to send this anywhere in the world.
Making these shark-remittance companies pay for what they are taking from their customers.

when bitcoin fully grow western union and money gram will be out of business. The underlined principle behind established of bitcoin are low fee, decentralization and security. Western union or money gram are established to make money through fees as they like the conventional banking. They will not use bitcoin because they know the day they start to use it their business is over.

Because they are not like bitcoin that very convenient to use, the satisfaction on the users they cannot comply it well. That's why bitcoin for them is really a threat, though bitcoin is not actually competing them. If were the the owner of WU if I can't beat them join them. just very simple.

For me I have not seen anywhere in the world, although I have not been to the whole world but the its a fact that you wont see where a competitor will be promoting another competitor when it is obvious that that the moment bitcoin becomes generally accepted, then if it wont send paypal and money gram out of business it will shrink their revenue to a large extent. I wont even be surprised if they are behind the campaign propagating the disadvantages of bitcoin alone.

It wouldn't make sense for someone to use these services if bitcoin becomes adopted globally, these companies would need to completely change to accommodate bitcoin, maybe offer some kind of bitcoin to cash service in order to get their fees.

Speaking of money remittances or transfers they would really not like to adopt bitcoin because they cant make money on every transaction that they made and also they saw bitcoin as a competition to these field regarding on money or fund transfers that why they would not ever accept bitcoin on their service.

It is counter productive for them if they will be doing so. Both bitcoin and those money transfer services aren't going to benefit from one another. Unless of course a partnership is forged between them in which certain benefits can be had by both parties.

That is far from being the truth because a number of start-up companies into the same remittance business are not running at a lose. What is fact is that WU and MG grew up with the philosophy of centralized business model concepts and all these talks about decentralization is Latin or Greek to their ears. That approach guarantees they keep ripping people off with very high fees and that's the ping pong they have been playing alongside the banks on people over the years.

Now those are part of the financial ills Bitcoin is here to address and it is good to know, it has gotten them panicking already. It is their choice to either wake up to the reality and embrace change or simply wait for reality to dawn on them as the remittance startups and much more companies that would be springing up drives them out of business.

It is already happening in Mexico in response to Trump's outburst to tax remittances coming from the U.S.. the demand for Bitcoin have surged soon after Trump's declaration.

i think the system between western union or moneygram is different than bitcoin and they are not yet to integrate with blockchain technology so they don't use bitcoin as option in the payment. maybe they consider that bitcoin as their competitor in payment processor but it would be great if western union or moneygram use bitcoin in future.

First I think using Bitcoins is to expensive to them and they should upgrade and redefine their whole system. Also I don't know who would they integrate their extremly high fees they charge, this wouldn't go along with Bitcoin. WU and Moneygram are widely used for money laundering and illegal money transfers, maybe they think with Bitcoin could be even worse.

It was an interesting article. I have frequently wondered if Bitcoin can eventually drive Western Union and similar companies out of business.

Because BTC is going up and down?

If you can't fight with it, try to embrace it

For example, this is what Microsoft has been doing all their history. Why should WU be any different? These are ruthless businesses which don't care about changing their stance 180 degrees any moment and all of a sudden accepting things they have just been condemning if doing that helps them with their profits. So just being a competitor doesn't mean that they might not embrace Bitcoin in the future. In fact, such things happened many times in the past and continue to happen every other day

I agree 100%, WU or Moneygram can embrace Bitcoin and use it to transfer money cheaply around the world, or they can keep on spending more than they need to.
Private persons probably won't move money internationally very often using Bitcoin, but a new company could move in and undercut the established companies by using Bitcoin.

That would be reason enough to start using Bitcoin, I think they are basically ignoring it at the moment as they would have some liability to the price, and there would be a set up cost.

They will do it sooner or later though, or someone else will.

I'm not sure they will do, AFAIK they system works involved bank(mostly related to government), which means if WU try to use bitcoin(without bank) it will be something like "rejection" from the government about legality which mostly country not have a bitcoin legality.
Plus, their revenue will decreased, when use bitcoin is almost free of transaction fees.
CMIIW.

The correct answer is the difficulty in converting the bitcoin in the target country.

Say someone is sending money from the United States to Zimbabwe. There is a Western Union shop in both countries. But how would they convert bitcoin in Zimbabwe currency?

Bitcoin either needs to be adopted everywhere so people don't need to convert it, they can just use it to pay their bills. Or it needs exchanges in every part of the world so the recipient can sell it for local currency.

Western union and moneygram can not adopt the use of bitcoin for their businesses as it puts them out of business and just might be the cause of their extinction if they were to use it.
Though the coming of bitcoin seems to have given these entities a lifeline as people around the world use their services to acquire btc with less KYC checks.

The irony of your question is that in this very case there will be absolutely no difficulty in converting bitcoins in Zimbabwe since Zimbabwean national currency is the same US dollar nowadays. If you refer to floating exchange rates, then current markets rates are obviously used, which are typically determined by trading the national currency against the US dollar at some major local exchange (if we talk about remittances from the US). In other words, there shouldn't be any difficulty just because of Bitcoin

You can use any other currency as a carrier of value, and you will see the light

Someone should open up btc atm that lets you sell btc in mexico and take advantage of all the meixco immigrants that go to work in the us and send back money to their families. This would replace western union. Good profits to me had.  :D :D :D :D

That is totally wrong! Companies like Bitspark in Hong Kong, Payphil in South Korea, or BitPesa in Kenya, etc are into Bitcoin remittance business and they are doing just fine. I know because I regularly do business with one of them.
That is for the time being! Their exorbitant fees, which by the way is all that matters to them, is such a pain and inconvenience and I know it is only a matter of time and events would overtake them. That is what usually happens to people and establishments that refuse to embrace change.

This is not completely true or not true at all.
There are offices here in North America that have QR codes on the forms that come with their remittance forms for sending a Western Union moneygram. What are these QR codes for you may ask?
For bitcoin! ;D

No matter the technicalities or the economic indicators being used to justify the current between the actors in this case, the fact still remain that they cannot co-exist as it is like me as an individual open my door for someone to take business away from me, if that will happen, I am sure its not going to happen without a fight and that is what we are facing now where as a result of the exorbitant transaction cost, people go for bitcoin, while they too will respond with several campaigns against bitcoin.

This is simple, why do I need to promote my direct competitor, I know they would be worried  by the inward route Bitcoin has made into market like India and Philippines recently, the market strategy can easily be copied and they would be concerned about this

Precisely, there's a fear if promoting Bitcoin in the fiat world and western union and the likes feels threatened so they are not ready to embrace this technology and cryptocurrency yet but I feel it's a healthy competition and there should be a compromise somewhere do that both can come together to give us something really big.

Actually, Western Union and others moneygram are not competitors, bitcoin is a decentralized currency which moneygram could use it to easily send-receive over the world. That's why in the article said : If they did, they could eliminate the potential threat posed by the young Bitcoin remittance start-ups who are out there trying to eat their lunch.
They should realize it asap otherwise, their competitors will overcome or else, bitcoin itself will.

I don't see how the introduction of Bitcoin by Western Union or Moneygram can be said to be the promotion of competitors, rather it is the foot dragging of the above companies that is giving rise to start up companies that plan to fill the void. Essentially it is relatively easier, cost effective and almost instantaneous to do business with Bitcoin, which is a plus as far as international remittances is concerned.

In the light of that, remittance companies doing business with Bitcoin stand the chance of some added advantages over those doing business with just fiats.

It kills the business and business model they have at the moment. They kind of act like a bitcoin service with a disgusting amount of fees and completely centralized with the two companies.

Once bitcoin hits mainstream, those two mega-corps are going to die very quickly. Can't wait to see the day when they do die off.

Because they are direct competition, bitcoin does some of the same things as western union with the difference that is cheaper, faster, you have the possibility of keeping your self anonymous, and you can even make money while you do all of that.

Those QR are not for bitcoin they are for money transaction, I think that MoneyGram and Western Union are not using bitcoin is mainly because it is still not an international currency and its price is not stable so the exchange rate will be different from country to country, but if you really want to exchange bitcoin to fiat through MoneyGram or Western Union you can find many offers on local bitcoin.

No, not yet :D.  Moneygram and Western Union won't be accepting or using Bitcoin for now,why would they?  it will only cut their profit.  As what is said, Enjoy it while it last. Eventually this two big company will yield to Bitcoin once bitcoin go mainstream and adopted worldwide.  I do not see these two company see Bitcoin as competitor because they can profit from it just by doing Bitcoin Exchange Services, their service is trusted, so they will have million of clients automatically once they adopted Bitcoin, but as I said, for them, it is not the time yet because accepting it this early will make them loss Billion Dollar profit.

Well said my friend, it is indeed a fact that if they will integrate bitcoin into their system then there will be lost a huge income from their fees. Bitcoin market is of today not that huge and so western union and moneygram have not really felt its effect as of this moment. But time will come when people will no longer use western union like what happened in Switzerland then those companies will rush and integrate bitcoin into their system before they get bankrupt.

we will see how they will adopt after bitcoin became more popular, we can't blame them since its their business that's earned a lot with this service migrating to bitcoin will allow their costumers to learn more about low transaction fees and easy to transfer from wallet to wallet without any interfere of any government taxes.

Western union and MoneyGram doesn't have anything to follow bitcoin as they are using other methods of transaction medium. Now related service provider PayPal is making plans of using Blockchain technology. So in future those service providers too might start following bitcoin's technology.

I think even if they did, the bitcoin users wouldn't use their service because they can do it by themselves. That's one of the advantages of bitcoin. You can transfer money to another person from a different country all by yourself. You don't need to use and pay any service at all except for the small transaction fee. It would just be a waste of funds if they started using bitcoins but they can always implement it whenever they want. These business people can change their course whenever they want. I think that would happen only when bitcoin's starting to take over. But the world wouldn't be needing their service at that point as told in the OP.

Since bitcoin is not yet regulated by our government, the said remittance center will not allowed by our country to have bitcoin transaction.
Aside from its high transaction, bitcoin price changes from time to time so it is hard for them to find to know its current value. But, if bitcoin price will just change everyday not from time to time I think they can adopt bitcoin also.

On the contrary, bitcoiners would be using them when for instance someone wants to remit his coins for dollars or any other form of money, so opting to do business with Bitcoin won't put them out of business, but playing the Ostrich would.

Then they would have lost their market share to those companies that saw the vision of Bitcoin and the easiest thing in life is not to unwittingly hand in your rightful position only to start fighting for it again from the bottom! They say, make hay, while the sun shines!!

Since a large portion of western union customers and moneygram customers initiate or receive remittances in cash, they often view new digital payment services as a threat to their business.Since bitcoin is not widely accepted as payment and its price is highly volatile, they dont show interest in it.They say, Remittances go to pay for housing and for food and maintaining the family and so the receiver will not show interest in receiving payment in bitcoins for such uses.

Something I will say is short sighted, if instead of spending your money right away you just waited for bitcoin to increase in price then you could have a little extra every month that could help you in your finances.

 Western union or moneygram does not use bitcoin because wu's fee is higher than bitcoin transection fee and the money exchanging process is easier than bitcoin.they can exchange their money by dibit card or atm.

Exactly, that's what i think actually i am not a WU user but my friend was, the only reason why he moved to bitcoin and left western union is about the fee, wu charges him much fee even for sending minimal amount, for example my friend sent 52 dollars to vietnam from my country and the fee was 9 dollars it's really big if we compare it to the bitcoin's fee. Now he's using bitcoin, finaly he can send even million dollars with lowest fee.
I bet if all of the WU users out there embrace bitcoin they wouldn't use their service anymore.

yeah i think bitcoin is one of the competitor for them and if they get into bitcoin it is difficult for them to run their own business so, that's why they never use iit in that way.......

No that is far from the truth! The money exchange with Bitcoin is by far the simplest and cheapest. It doesn't take some business days to pull through and you can access the fund from just about anywhere in the world. The charges for using those cards is something to give another thought, because they usually eat real deep into the fund being transferred. WU and MG, might want to drag their feet because of the kill they are making from the exorbitant fees they charge, but as the adoption of Bitcoin spreads further, competition would force them to adjust or pack up.

Even western union doesn't need bitcoin, in the near future once the community discover the edges of bitcoin for sure western union client will shift into bitcoin concept because of its unique features. In short, many remittance outlet are possible to be close if they will not adopt the system concept of bitcoin.

I doubt it too as not all of transaction could handled by blockchain itself, so that we still need Western Union or other moneygrams.
But bitcoin actually could replace any service of moneygram that not using bitcoin as medium of transaction, we're heading to bigger market cap, $12 billion? It's not, man, $16.5 billion right now. And we will have significant increases by the end of the year, always like that.

We don't necessarily need a hefty market cap to crowd out payment services like "Western Union or other moneygrams"

As I see it, the market cap as such is not very relevant itself. But what is relevant in the velocity of circulation, i.e. how often one bitcoin on average changes hands over a certain period of time. Ultimately, if the velocity is infinite, just one bitcoin will be enough to match all the requirements in bitcoins for circulation. In this way, neither price not market cap are significant for that purpose, though in general the higher velocity leads to price decline overall (and thus to lower market cap) since the effect is the same as if there were more bitcoins in circulation (it is a bit counterintuitive but it is really so)

They're all in the same competition with bitcoin, but this is no sense for me. Does WU and money gram want to use bitcoin? That's a silly question.

It's also mean if they're trying to use their opponent's p[roduct. in fact, bitcoin already overcome Western Union.

We have a chanse to see that western union maybe will accept bitcoin because they are getting destroyed by bitcoin in switzerland. There was opened thread about that. Many electronic ticket machine accepts bitcoin and  people have been using it for remittance purposes instead of Western Union.
More information and discussion can be found here if you don't know this thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1770481.0

Bitcoin is crushing them in Switzerland, But how western union is going to make money out of it? I don't see a clear business plan to adopt bitcoin and somehow make money out of it, if they charge an additional fee people will just use bitcoin directly without the added fee of western union.

The Western Union and MoneyGram are also good in service especially to send or receive money.There can be no bitcoin in money transfers because they differ by system and policy. Bitcoin doesn't  need western union and money gram,western union doesn't  need bitcoin. What I like in bitcoin is fast transaction and low fees, unlike in western union and money gram, they both have higher fees. Bitcoin for me is a barrier to money transfers when it became legal throughout the world because  more of customers in western union and money gram can transfer to use bitcoin.

Absolutely agree, if they start using bitcoin then people would not use western union or similar services as bitcoin doesn't need any third party. Alternatively, it will also affect their revenue model in a negative way. I see good future of the companies like bitpay so we can safely say that bitpay is a new PayPal or Western union.

I actually dont expect them to accept bitcoin, because the moment that is implemented, then the fees they charged as a form of revenue will drop drastically and aside from that, for their own justification, their business is really regulated and they even exist within the confines of the law of the particular country which they are operating. Any country that does not accept bitcoin as a form of legal tender then western Union is under such rule not to accept so far its still ready to run business in that country.

It is because Moneygram and Western Union are both regulated industry. While bitcoin is not, when it comes to the services in terms of payment bitcoin was really more advantage to them, because it fast transactions, the fee of charge is very minimal, very much secured and more safest for me.

WU and MG could very well incorporate Bitcoin without their profits suffering too much. It's all about the fees that they generate when it comes to their core business model. If Bitcoin turns out to be far more popular than the regular activities of both of these services, then they will still benefit as they scoop up the fees from the increased Bitcoin usage. One way or another, if they generate fees and manage to realize growth, then it doesn't matter where it comes from.

Basically, they already have everything in place

And unlike other posters who think that Bitcoin is of no use to these remittance services altogether, I'm more inclined to think that they could make a good use of it after all. With Bitcoin price rising and transaction fees spiking, they could use their existing infrastructure for sending as well as receiving bitcoins. In fact, they don't need to sell or receive anything at all since they could work just like web wallets work (I refer to off-chain transactions here), but unlike the latter, they have almost ubiquitous physical presence (outlets) in the world (which they could use as their competitive advantage)

it doesn't make sense to me that competitors use bitcoin, they are centralized service running with fiat money they will never use bitcoin, pretty much liek any government will never make bitcoin a currency for their country, and also by using bitcoin they would make less in fee because their fee are higher than bitcoin

I think it doesn't really matter if some service is centralized or not. Any economic entity is centralized by definition and operating like a whole to an outside observer. In this sense, Coinbase and Western Union are not particularly different. I'd rather say they are as centralized as it gets. They might not be going to use Bitcoin any time soon but mostly because it is not very usable overall (at larger scales). If we are to remain honest, Bitcoin still remains pretty marginal. But with changes made to it and improving it, things may change fast

After all, all these companies are going for profits in the first place, and that's what matters in the end

Western Union and MoneyGram were the competing services that are available long back itself. It was found popular among people who need someone to take care of their transaction. They are just an intermediary service offering group. Recently due to the growth of digital currency Switzerland land has closed MoneyGram. Soon they might Start using bitcoin or their own coin to grow further.

Because these two types of remittance will certainly break their own business if they are going to accept bitcoin.

And if ever they will accept bitcoin, it means that they surrendered to bitcoin. Just look at PayPal, though they are aware about bitcoin's potential and success.

They still don't adopt it.

There may be plenty of reasons why they don't accept or adopt Bitcoin

I have already mentioned it before but it seems to be worth mentioning it again. PayPal just like other remittance companies such as Western Union or MoneyGram is working in many countries across the world, but Bitcoin regulation differs between countries dramatically. In some countries it is perfectly legal and welcome (say, in Switzerland, known for their love toward hard currencies) while in others it is outright prohibited (say, in Iceland), so these services may run into serious legal issues when sending bitcoins to the latter countries. It is like weed in the US, in some states like Washington it is legal, in some others like Indiana it is illegal

Western union money transfer and moneygram will ever be against bitcoin and others crypto currencies as they see it as they major competitor. When bitcoin is fully grown western union Money transfer and Moneygram will be out of business because of the charges and the decentralize nature of bitcoin.

Other than being competitors, both western union and moneygram avoid any legal tension in places where bitcoins are banned as the can lose a lot of money through fines and penalties and can damage the company's reputation!

Of course bitcoin is a danger to WU.
Why would anybody use a company that charges larg fees, when you can do the same thing without the company?
I see just one possibility how WU could benefit from bitcoin:
WU could open some kind of buy & sell system at the doorstep of peoples home.

As deisik pointed out, Western Union is a remittance service, which has to clear currency regulations in both sender and receiver countries to be legally compliant. The issue right now is that bitcoin is still a bit of a grey area with regards to its legal status in many countries and hasn't, in the opinion of WU perhaps, reached an acceptable level of financial compliance that would facilitate due diligence.

It could also simply be a case of perceived reliability, an issue not unique to bitcoin. WU, at discretion, may not accept currencies it deems to be unreliable value-wise: the Zimbabwean dollar was and currently, the South Sudanese pound is an example of currency WU will not accept for remittance.

Western Union can reach countries, where Internet is not available, like in Asia and Africa. Therefore Western Union will continue to work in such remote areas, and it will of course do not need Bitcoin, because Bitcoin use include computer use and Internet.

And that's what we all are concerned about. Yes, it's about the fees and the charges when it comes to their profits but even in the current situation, they take much more time to process the transaction. No doubt, cryptocurrencies is far better when it comes to the time part. Bitcoin is faster even in transaction backlog.

I think if they enable bitcoin option currency as their transaction , major people will use bitcoin instead fiat since bitcoin provide smaller fee
But in other side , bitcoin still consider as risky investation so let say if they enable bitcoin and bitcoin value suddenly dump , it become major loss for their company

well what you say when western union bitcoin was not necessary anymore, because the transfer system is almost the same,

Why they need to allow Bitcoin as their transaction, Bitcoin is not related to western union and money gram, it is a unique cryptocurrency and to use this we don't need any other companies help. People can use this easily without any paperwork and without giving any document. So for me also the Bitcoin is best to compare WU and MG.

Yes I did mentioned that already but you are getting far from the whole topic we are just talking about moneygram and western union only here.

But your comparison seems to be true and I find it right. I really can't see that they will accept bitcoin in the future.

Or else their business will be dead.

Bitcoin is like fully automated WU or Moneygram. For them to use bitcoin they would have to fire most of their workers because they would have no purpose as everything would be automated. Ofcourse they could have some staff but the staff would be a lot lower.

World is really fucked up and all those silly jobs like being a banker or a broker should be completly obsolete. Not only that those jobs are pointless, but to throw a salt to the wound, the people employed there takes a very high salary.

The same shit is with marketing. The marketing people do stuff that should be crowd based. Its the people that should be talking to eachother what is worthwhile to buy not listening to some fucked up manipulating devils.

I can say people deserve what they get. Lets just make a Bitcoinlandia and make our own country and leave those who feed those corporate trolls.

yes that is right to say that bitcoin has no concern with western union or money gram. bitcoin is a digital currency just like fiat currency, bitcoin can be use for both online ans well as online purposes. but actually the users of bitcoin are currently not present in all over the world and that is the reason that yet bitcoin is not available in all hops for shopping but hope that in future we can expect that bitcoin will be be accepted in all over the world.

Me getting far from the whole topic, wtf?

It was you who first mentioned PayPal, and now you come to reprimand me that I just followed your thought? It is the same with MoneyGram and Western Union as with PayPal. I had been using PayPal in the past and I know for certain that they have to comply with local rules and laws. For example, you can't transact with US dollars directly outside the US. Dollars have to converted to local currencies, and their exchange rates are not very far from being outright extortionate