[2015-05-26] TC: Bitcoin Might Be The Next Big Thing In The Remittance Market

[bryant.coleman]

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/25/bitcoin-might-be-the-next-big-thing-in-the-remittance-market/

Remittance was a $582 billion market in 2014 according to the World Bank. Most of all it is dominated by transfers from developed countries to developing ones. In 2014, China received $64 billion through remittance and India $71 billion. Philippines received $25 billion, Mexico $22 billion, Nigeria $21 billion, Egypt $17 billion and Vietnam $11 billion in 2013. So far most transactions are made through brick and mortar networks; in 2014 only 5% were digital transactions. These networks like Western Union or MoneyGram charge high fees to finance their deep local presence worldwide. A typical money transfer costs up to 10% fees.

Hearing this for well over a year now... yet to see any meaningful progress. Ventures such as Bitpesa are not up to the mark. Feeling disappointed and dejected at the same time. 

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[Professor Plums]

Hearing this for well over a year now... yet to see any meaningful progress. Ventures such as Bitpesa are not up to the mark. Feeling disappointed and dejected at the same time. 

We've been hearing a lot of things but with everything regarding bitcoin it's just going to take time. The potential is there but it just needs to be realized, and like I just said, this is unfortunately likely to take a considerable amount of time but hopefully our patience will be rewarded in the near future.

[EternalWingsofGod]

It does lead to the question of what is the problem that bitcoin needs to overcome to acquire mass adoption in the remittance market.

In my opinion the challenge is how to get bitcoin merchants to convert money into local currency in enough locations to make it signifcant or get merchants to enter into that business, the second issue is getting people to acquire mobile phones, cards etc that have bitcoin balances and deposit addresses on them.
Building the killer distribution app and network to support it is when we will see extraordinary growth, I'm sure its not impossible it just would take some good damn logistics and people who can teach them to use it the first time.

[Neg]

It does lead to the question of what is the problem that bitcoin needs to overcome to acquire mass adoption in the remittance market.

I think the biggest issue is awareness. People who use the remittance market need to be aware of bitcoins and the savings they can make using it. There also needs to be merchants or payment processors that will take the coins and exchange them for their local currency. If people don't have access to these then there's not much point really.