5 ms·

How do you send money from the US to El Salvador without Bitcoin or WU? That's the whole point of remittance; I'm not sure how a network of ATMs local to El Sal

How do you send money from the US to El Salvador without Bitcoin or WU? That's the whole point of remittance; I'm not sure how a network of ATMs local to El Salvador will help people send money internationally to the country.

woodruffw 5y ago
You do exactly what Chivo does, except without using Bitcoin for clearing and settlement. You instead use a bank, or, because this is an entire country we’re talking about, use the national bank or carve out a special rule for financial remittance for your app.
- robot_no_419 5y ago
  So basically your solution is to give everyone in El Salvador a bank account and for the government to subsidize their remittance fees. Because if you're using banks, someone is paying fees. Someone from the US still has pay a fee to wire money from their bank to some endpoint in El Salvador. The banks are literally the problem that Bitcoin solves, not the solution. Banks = fees and censorship.
- whywhywhywhy 5y ago
  If you can just do that then why does WU exist?
  - thrwyoilarticle 5y ago
    Is this the thread where US Bitcoin fans learn that the rest of the world has been doing this for decades?
    - whywhywhywhy 5y ago
      I'm being sarcastic. Bitcoin in an amazing solution that allows people working in the west to send money home direct and takes this trash company out of the equation.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  if it’s as easy as having your bank send money to someone else’s bank, why does western union and transferwise exist?
  - OJFord 5y ago
    [Transfer]Wise is typically cheaper than bank to bank, they (the banks) charge relatively heavily (at least for normal retail current accounts) for IBAN/BIC/et al. transfers. But yes it is possible, and as easy as entering some different/extra numbers compared to intranational sort code/account number transfers.
    - thebean11 5y ago
      That relies on banks in the sending country participating too, or El Salvador opening it's own banks in those countries doesn't it? How do they get sending banks to participate in these cheap/free international transfers?
      - OJFord 5y ago
        Sorry, that was perhaps unclear, that 'they' referred to the banks, in the case of bank-bank. Bank-bank requires that the bank at both ends supports sending/receiving to/from (as applicable) IBAN or similar yes. In the UK in practice that means 'mainstream' banks do and 'challenger' banks don't. (Monzo for example prefers to solve the problem by integrating Wise a bit into its own app.) Wise avoids it by charging you (like paying for any other product/service) or having you transfer to its account in your country, and then sending the payment to the destination bank from its account in the same country as that, so it becomes two local transfers, one in each country.
  - Workaccount2 5y ago
    Because if you're not in the country legally you don't have a bank account.
el-salvador 5y ago
.
- robot_no_419 5y ago
  This is a dumb and pedantic reply
- yCombLinks 5y ago
  Any remittance company can stand in for Western Union to make his argument, the actual company isn't relevant.
OJFord 5y ago
It seems Wise (nee TransferWise) doesn't ('yet') support SVC, but assuming you don't actually specifically care about El Salvador, it does support quite a range of not particularly major currencies, and that'd be my answer. Wise (and competitors, no affiliation just can't recall other names at the moment) are popular/standard in Europe, but as far as I can tell not so much in North America. I don't know why; as far as I can tell it's supported (certainly the currencies are) and allowed? Of course if you have cash you want sent it's no good, but I'm not sure how many legitimate use cases there are (where you can't deposit in a bank current account first) for that these days.
- robot_no_419 5y ago
  > assuming you don't actually specifically care about El Salvador ...what was the point of providing this answer then when the question was specifically about El Salvador...
  - OJFord 5y ago
    As I said in your quotation, it was because I assumed your actual question was more general, that El Salvador is just the subject here, but for the purposes of your question it's just standing in for 'some other country with another [perhaps minor] currency', and so Wise not currently supporting SVC specifically would be rather arbitrary. If you do actually want to send money to an SVC denominated account in ES, then no, it doesn't help you (beyond 'you could sign up to be notified'...), sorry for bothering you with it?
    - robot_no_419 5y ago
      My question is a lot more general than just sending money to El Salvador, you are right. But if your reply does not satisfy the specific problem constraints of sending money to El Salvador, then it can't be a solution to my more general question of how to send money internationally regardless of whether or not your counter-party has access to the correct kind of banking services (or none at all).
- el-salvador 5y ago
Milkman128 5y ago
doesn't google pay do this?

woodruffw 5y ago

You do exactly what Chivo does, except without using Bitcoin for clearing and settlement. You instead use a bank, or, because this is an entire country we’re talking about, use the national bank or carve out a special rule for financial remittance for your app.

robot_no_419 5y ago
So basically your solution is to give everyone in El Salvador a bank account and for the government to subsidize their remittance fees. Because if you're using banks, someone is paying fees. Someone from the US still has pay a fee to wire money from their bank to some endpoint in El Salvador. The banks are literally the problem that Bitcoin solves, not the solution. Banks = fees and censorship.
whywhywhywhy 5y ago
If you can just do that then why does WU exist?
- thrwyoilarticle 5y ago
  Is this the thread where US Bitcoin fans learn that the rest of the world has been doing this for decades?
  - whywhywhywhy 5y ago
    I'm being sarcastic. Bitcoin in an amazing solution that allows people working in the west to send money home direct and takes this trash company out of the equation.
jazzyjackson 5y ago
if it’s as easy as having your bank send money to someone else’s bank, why does western union and transferwise exist?
- OJFord 5y ago
  [Transfer]Wise is typically cheaper than bank to bank, they (the banks) charge relatively heavily (at least for normal retail current accounts) for IBAN/BIC/et al. transfers. But yes it is possible, and as easy as entering some different/extra numbers compared to intranational sort code/account number transfers.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    That relies on banks in the sending country participating too, or El Salvador opening it's own banks in those countries doesn't it? How do they get sending banks to participate in these cheap/free international transfers?
    - OJFord 5y ago
      Sorry, that was perhaps unclear, that 'they' referred to the banks, in the case of bank-bank. Bank-bank requires that the bank at both ends supports sending/receiving to/from (as applicable) IBAN or similar yes. In the UK in practice that means 'mainstream' banks do and 'challenger' banks don't. (Monzo for example prefers to solve the problem by integrating Wise a bit into its own app.) Wise avoids it by charging you (like paying for any other product/service) or having you transfer to its account in your country, and then sending the payment to the destination bank from its account in the same country as that, so it becomes two local transfers, one in each country.
- Workaccount2 5y ago
  Because if you're not in the country legally you don't have a bank account.

el-salvador 5y ago

robot_no_419 5y ago
This is a dumb and pedantic reply
yCombLinks 5y ago
Any remittance company can stand in for Western Union to make his argument, the actual company isn't relevant.

OJFord 5y ago

It seems Wise (nee TransferWise) doesn't ('yet') support SVC, but assuming you don't actually specifically care about El Salvador, it does support quite a range of not particularly major currencies, and that'd be my answer. Wise (and competitors, no affiliation just can't recall other names at the moment) are popular/standard in Europe, but as far as I can tell not so much in North America. I don't know why; as far as I can tell it's supported (certainly the currencies are) and allowed? Of course if you have cash you want sent it's no good, but I'm not sure how many legitimate use cases there are (where you can't deposit in a bank current account first) for that these days.

robot_no_419 5y ago
> assuming you don't actually specifically care about El Salvador ...what was the point of providing this answer then when the question was specifically about El Salvador...
- OJFord 5y ago
  As I said in your quotation, it was because I assumed your actual question was more general, that El Salvador is just the subject here, but for the purposes of your question it's just standing in for 'some other country with another [perhaps minor] currency', and so Wise not currently supporting SVC specifically would be rather arbitrary. If you do actually want to send money to an SVC denominated account in ES, then no, it doesn't help you (beyond 'you could sign up to be notified'...), sorry for bothering you with it?
  - robot_no_419 5y ago
    My question is a lot more general than just sending money to El Salvador, you are right. But if your reply does not satisfy the specific problem constraints of sending money to El Salvador, then it can't be a solution to my more general question of how to send money internationally regardless of whether or not your counter-party has access to the correct kind of banking services (or none at all).
el-salvador 5y ago

Milkman128 5y ago

doesn't google pay do this?