Bitcoin Forum

done right, this has potential to be very big

http://www.coindesk.com/volabit-satoshitango-rebittance-argentina-mexico/

if replicated multiple times across world
I hope to see the death of western union via these channels and overall use of cryptos in the near future

interesting

Rebittance?  :D. Yeh, I think the remittance market is currently a huge untapped resource in the bitcoin and even world economy. We really need to spread the word about the benefits of bitcoin in the remittance industry as the people who use it could save millions. It's really a market where bitcoin could flourish and I hope it is utilized.

Right now WU is dying a slow, painful death by a million pinpricks
This right here is one of them... :D

I don't think they are going down just yet . Even in countries like Philipines, I would be interested in knowing how many people actually shifted to using bitcoins for remittance for the purpose of saving the hefty fees that WU charges.

Yeah, I can see they're almost out of business.  http://corporate.westernunion.com/Corporate_Citizenship.html

The beautiful thing about Argentina specifically, is that the local population (the people handling money at least) love the idea of bitcoin. The regulatory blocks in the country are making it difficult, but if that can be overcome by a herd mentality of other nations, then the people on the ground floor would be willing to use it.

I am not just making it up, my former boss was at Argentina's BTC convention in 2013. Everybody was crazy for bitcoin over there.

Anyone have any stats, or links to such, showing the use of bitcoin for remittances? Everyone seems to agree it is a great idea, and news like this looks very good for bitcoin adoption. But I don't hear much about the degree to which foreign workers are actually making use of it, or planning to (and explanations as to why they have not yet done so, etc.)

Once people start using it for remittances, they will also be more likely and interested in using it directly for payments without the bother of converting back to fiat. So a wave of remittance use could be followed by further waves of merchant acceptance and use.

There is still a long way to go before bitcoins can be spent easily in developing countries;
So fiat-->bitcoin--> fiat is the way to go now.

...

I have read and talked with people who say how popular BTC is in Argentina.  They have an active tech community there, and a long history of irresponsible governments.  Even now Argentina restricts purchases of US dollars.

Now when will BTC start getting popular in Peru?  But, Peru has more economic freedom than Argentina, so there is not much pressure to look for alternative methods of protecting Peruvian savings -- the dollar markets are completely free there.