Why Doesn’t Western Union or Moneygram Use Bitcoin?

[Doms]

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.

[1713976535]

1713976535

[Victorycoin]

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.

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.

[traderethereum]

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.

[bitbunnny]

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.

[Electra01]

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#

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

[miningdude]

Because BTC is going up and down?

[deisik]

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

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

[NUFCrichard]

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

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.

[ikydesu]

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.

[alyssa85]

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.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

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.

[deisik]

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?

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

[0xfff]

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. 

[Victorycoin]

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.

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.

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.

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.

[LLec]

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.

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!

[olushakes]

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#

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.

[topesis]

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

[szpalata]

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.

[Rahar02]

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

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.

[Victorycoin]

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

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.