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> International payments When was the last time you made an international payment? I never made a payment outside of the EU and inside the EU I already have fr

> International payments When was the last time you made an international payment? I never made a payment outside of the EU and inside the EU I already have free wire transfers. For most people this is not interesting. > unbanked/underbanked You have the right to a bank account in the EU. > Allowing merchants to save 2% in credit card fees Currently Bitcoin is more expensive for typical transactions. And there's direct debit which is practically free at least here in Germany.

sowbug 9y ago
You're indirectly making international payments when you buy imported goods from local shops. When a single global currency is commonplace, you'll likely start doing it directly. The markets already exist in eBay, Alibaba, and Taobao.
alexandersingh 9y ago
According to Wikipedia, remittances were in excess of $560 billion last year, faciliated by 250 million migrant workers[1]. You and I are not the user demographic ;) 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance
- jogjayr 9y ago
  To be fair that demographic has been traditionally served by the hawala system[1]. It's not obvious to me right now that they'd switch to BTC so easily; of course I could be wrong. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala
- 0x006A 9y ago
  That's his point though, the early internet had many useful applications that where appealing to the mainstream. International money transfers are not a mainstream activity.
  - alexandersingh 9y ago
    250 million people isn't mainstream? These are people sending money to their families on a monthly basis, and where current transfer fees can take the equivalent of a half day of work. That strikes me as an appealing use case.
    - 0x006A 9y ago
      a highly regulated one too, crypto does not address the complexities of international monetary regulations. If the solution is to not abide by the existing regulations, it not going to be mainstream.
      - alexandersingh 9y ago
        As jogjayr pointed out, the Hawala system has existed before and after formal regulations. Crypto alone might not represent a viable mainstream alternative, but it does have potential as one piece of a composite solution.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - majani 9y ago
    Can people in this thread please take a minute to consider demographics outside your immediate circles?
- patd 9y ago
  I'm long Bitcoin but those numbers should be taken with a grain of salt before using them to make a case for remittance and Bitcoin. Some of the top receiving countries include France, Germany or Belgium (over $1000 per inhabitant) and the top sending countries include Luxembourg ($12B for a population of 575K). So the numbers probably include cross-border workers. People living in France/Germany/Belgium but working in Luxembourg. Transferring euros within the SEPA region (for free) for at least $50B out of the $560B mentioned.
quickthrower2 9y ago
> When was the last time you made an international payment? About an hour ago. I'm on holiday ftw. But even not on holiday ... Quite often. With an extortionate credit card fee.
- jogjayr 9y ago
  You can get credit card with no foreign transaction fees quite easily. It's possible they make it up in the exchange rate spread though; I honestly don't know.
  - Kluny 9y ago
    They do. There's a 2.5% conversion fee. $25/1000. It's irritating.
mrb 9y ago
"When was the last time you made an international payment?" I love that you asked this question! The very reason it doesn't happen often is because of friction inherent to legacy payment systems. Cryptocurrencies remove this friction in cross-border trade, hence are making such transactions more commonplace. It's like you saying in 1890 "Why buy cars? People don't travel that much." But the invention of cars is precisely what increased the desire to travel. "You have the right to a bank account in the EU" What about the rest of the world? 6.6B humans? "Currently Bitcoin is more expensive" Not for transactions above approximately $100.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >I love that you asked this question! The very reason it doesn't happen often is because of friction inherent to legacy payment systems. Cryptocurrencies remove this friction in cross-border trade, hence are making such transactions more commonplace. It's like you saying in 1890 "Why buy cars? People don't travel that much." But the invention of cars is precisely what increased the desire to travel. This argument presupposes what it tries to prove: the utility of cryptocurrencies. There's no argument in there on why, if it was trivially possible due to cryptocurrency, the desire/need for international payments would increase.
- bshimmin 9y ago
  I love that you asked this question! The very reason it doesn't happen often is because of friction inherent to legacy payment systems. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what is meant by "international payment", but surely for a majority of people this is just an irrelevance? I can't imagine my parents have ever needed to make an international payment, for instance. I have an employee in Iran and my goodness was it hard to work out how to pay him (Iranian banks don't have SWIFT and IBAN and helpful things like that), and Bitcoin did actually seem like a legitimate option at one point, until we realised that between business banking and accounting, it was also going to be really hard to do - so I would love for this new wave of currencies to make international payments easier. But I just don't think it's of very much significance to many people in the grand scheme of things. 54% of Americans apparently don't have a passport; are these people really going to be making regular international payments, more than about once a lifetime? (The significant number of "digital nomads" on HN who work from a beach in Thailand are really not representative!) However, if we're taking "international payment" to mean "an easy way to take out/spend money when you're on holiday without getting stung by exchange rates and assorted complexities" then I will certainly grant you that this would be broadly regarded as a mainstream benefit (though, again, I guess those 54% of Americans would probably disagree).
capex 9y ago
'International' exists outside of EU. Actually most of the problems mentioned above belong to the vast majority of people outside the developed west.
Kluny 9y ago
Last week. I'm Canadian and currently working remotely for an American company. I am in Denmark at the moment and need Danish money because they don't do euros. The American company pays me by wire transfer and my Canadian bank skims $15 off the top. Then I transfer day-to-day spending money via the cheapest, best, most reliable service I have yet found - and it still costs $10 per $1000. I do that every month or so. If you're wondering whether a credit card would be cheaper, the answer is no. My credit card is the best one available to me for travelling abroad, and there's no foreign transaction fee - but they do charge 2.5% currency conversion, which is $25 per $1000. And some places don't take credit cards. All these fees are wasted money from my point of view, and the sooner I can stop paying them, the better.
- planteen 9y ago
  In the current situation with a few popular cryptos, you still have the exact same problem. Using ShapeShift to change BTC to ETC is going to charge a miner fee.

sowbug 9y ago

You're indirectly making international payments when you buy imported goods from local shops. When a single global currency is commonplace, you'll likely start doing it directly. The markets already exist in eBay, Alibaba, and Taobao.

alexandersingh 9y ago

According to Wikipedia, remittances were in excess of $560 billion last year, faciliated by 250 million migrant workers[1]. You and I are not the user demographic ;) 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance

jogjayr 9y ago
To be fair that demographic has been traditionally served by the hawala system[1]. It's not obvious to me right now that they'd switch to BTC so easily; of course I could be wrong. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala
0x006A 9y ago
That's his point though, the early internet had many useful applications that where appealing to the mainstream. International money transfers are not a mainstream activity.
- alexandersingh 9y ago
  250 million people isn't mainstream? These are people sending money to their families on a monthly basis, and where current transfer fees can take the equivalent of a half day of work. That strikes me as an appealing use case.
  - 0x006A 9y ago
    a highly regulated one too, crypto does not address the complexities of international monetary regulations. If the solution is to not abide by the existing regulations, it not going to be mainstream.
    - alexandersingh 9y ago
      As jogjayr pointed out, the Hawala system has existed before and after formal regulations. Crypto alone might not represent a viable mainstream alternative, but it does have potential as one piece of a composite solution.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- majani 9y ago
  Can people in this thread please take a minute to consider demographics outside your immediate circles?
patd 9y ago
I'm long Bitcoin but those numbers should be taken with a grain of salt before using them to make a case for remittance and Bitcoin. Some of the top receiving countries include France, Germany or Belgium (over $1000 per inhabitant) and the top sending countries include Luxembourg ($12B for a population of 575K). So the numbers probably include cross-border workers. People living in France/Germany/Belgium but working in Luxembourg. Transferring euros within the SEPA region (for free) for at least $50B out of the $560B mentioned.

quickthrower2 9y ago

> When was the last time you made an international payment? About an hour ago. I'm on holiday ftw. But even not on holiday ... Quite often. With an extortionate credit card fee.

jogjayr 9y ago
You can get credit card with no foreign transaction fees quite easily. It's possible they make it up in the exchange rate spread though; I honestly don't know.
- Kluny 9y ago
  They do. There's a 2.5% conversion fee. $25/1000. It's irritating.

mrb 9y ago

"When was the last time you made an international payment?" I love that you asked this question! The very reason it doesn't happen often is because of friction inherent to legacy payment systems. Cryptocurrencies remove this friction in cross-border trade, hence are making such transactions more commonplace. It's like you saying in 1890 "Why buy cars? People don't travel that much." But the invention of cars is precisely what increased the desire to travel. "You have the right to a bank account in the EU" What about the rest of the world? 6.6B humans? "Currently Bitcoin is more expensive" Not for transactions above approximately $100.

coldtea 9y ago
>I love that you asked this question! The very reason it doesn't happen often is because of friction inherent to legacy payment systems. Cryptocurrencies remove this friction in cross-border trade, hence are making such transactions more commonplace. It's like you saying in 1890 "Why buy cars? People don't travel that much." But the invention of cars is precisely what increased the desire to travel. This argument presupposes what it tries to prove: the utility of cryptocurrencies. There's no argument in there on why, if it was trivially possible due to cryptocurrency, the desire/need for international payments would increase.
bshimmin 9y ago
I love that you asked this question! The very reason it doesn't happen often is because of friction inherent to legacy payment systems. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what is meant by "international payment", but surely for a majority of people this is just an irrelevance? I can't imagine my parents have ever needed to make an international payment, for instance. I have an employee in Iran and my goodness was it hard to work out how to pay him (Iranian banks don't have SWIFT and IBAN and helpful things like that), and Bitcoin did actually seem like a legitimate option at one point, until we realised that between business banking and accounting, it was also going to be really hard to do - so I would love for this new wave of currencies to make international payments easier. But I just don't think it's of very much significance to many people in the grand scheme of things. 54% of Americans apparently don't have a passport; are these people really going to be making regular international payments, more than about once a lifetime? (The significant number of "digital nomads" on HN who work from a beach in Thailand are really not representative!) However, if we're taking "international payment" to mean "an easy way to take out/spend money when you're on holiday without getting stung by exchange rates and assorted complexities" then I will certainly grant you that this would be broadly regarded as a mainstream benefit (though, again, I guess those 54% of Americans would probably disagree).

capex 9y ago

'International' exists outside of EU. Actually most of the problems mentioned above belong to the vast majority of people outside the developed west.

Kluny 9y ago

Last week. I'm Canadian and currently working remotely for an American company. I am in Denmark at the moment and need Danish money because they don't do euros. The American company pays me by wire transfer and my Canadian bank skims $15 off the top. Then I transfer day-to-day spending money via the cheapest, best, most reliable service I have yet found - and it still costs $10 per $1000. I do that every month or so. If you're wondering whether a credit card would be cheaper, the answer is no. My credit card is the best one available to me for travelling abroad, and there's no foreign transaction fee - but they do charge 2.5% currency conversion, which is $25 per $1000. And some places don't take credit cards. All these fees are wasted money from my point of view, and the sooner I can stop paying them, the better.

planteen 9y ago
In the current situation with a few popular cryptos, you still have the exact same problem. Using ShapeShift to change BTC to ETC is going to charge a miner fee.