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Western Union (Business Services) employee here. I disagree with the author on many levels: 1. Government regulations. Wire transfer industry is a HIGHLY regu

Western Union (Business Services) employee here. I disagree with the author on many levels: 1. Government regulations. Wire transfer industry is a HIGHLY regulated industry. There is no way BitCoin will be able to operate without complying with AML (AntiMoney Laundering) and AntiTerrorist regulations. Many names/countries/organizations are on OFAC list. Thus, the minute you transfer a wire to Mohammad or to someone in Iran it raises a flag and you will spend days if not weeks investigating. Note: I didn't even mentioned all the licences that you need to obtain. 2. FX transfers. Author mentioned transferring bitcoin to India and getting rupees. It's not that easy. Foreign Exchange transfers depend on day of transfer. Thus, waiting or talking to a qualified trader may save you money. This takes time and people. Not sure how bitcoin (1 currency) can solve the process that requires 2 currencies. 3. There are MANY other services that provide better and faster solutions to transfer funds internationally. We were one of them and got acquired by Western Union :) Finally, bitcoin is a currency. Western Union is a service. That brings us to the major flaw of the article. Western Union facilitates the transfer, while bitcoin is just a medium. WU already uses medium to "transfer" the wires. It's called SWIFT.

gleetree 15y ago
I've transferred several thousand dollars worth of bitcoins in the last few weeks to a Chinese bank account - the exchange I bought them on didn't know what I wanted the bitcoins for. And the Chinese exchange I sold them on didn't know where I got them from. The act of buying the bitcoins contains no information about their future use. The fees were much lower than Western Union, and since Bitcoin prices are volatile I actually made money on most of the transfers. Bitinstant.com already allows you to send money to anyone in the world using paypal via bitcoin anonymously. Edit - the point is that bitcoin makes it possible for individuals or small companies to move funds to virtually anywhere in the world. A big multinational corporation facilitating this becomes unnecessary. At some point it will occur to people just to move the bitcoins and not bother converting them to a local currency.
maaku 15y ago
I don't think you understand what bitcoin is... The point (mentioned in the article) is that while such regulation does exist, there's absolutely no way to apply it to bitcoin, if used properly.
jbm 15y ago
I'm guessing you didn't meant to come off as bigoted but I have a lot of friends named Mohammad, none of whom have any legal issues, nor are any of them members of terrorist organizations. If the attitude towards me sending money to one of them for any number of legitimate reasons is baseless suspicion, maybe many people like me will wind up looking for alternatives - like bitcoin. At the expense of karma, allow me to add that in an odious legal atmosphere where prosecutors consider photographing chicken coops as terrorism, it won't just be people with funny terrorist-sounding names winding up using Bitcoin.
- GFischer 15y ago
  I'm not the poster, but I also work for a regulated industry, and I have to comply with those regulations, which I certainly don't agree with (and even campaigned against). I also guess that Smirnoff didn't mean it that way either. So, it's probably not Western Union who's to blame when sending money to Mohammed (or José Rodriguez which is an extremely common name here) is a big hassle for all parties involved, it's the regulators. The only thing WU can be blamed for is for working within the rules. It's not bigotry by WU. As he said, if services start providing money transfers (using Bitcoin or whatever) without complying with regulations, they'll probably will have to be based somewhere outside the US's influence, and will eventually be blocked and impeded in the US (see: online poker, only worse)
makomk 15y ago
Of course, right now Bitcoin also serves a fraction of the number of countries that Western Union does. Basically, unless you're in Europe, North America or Australia you almost certainly don't have any way of exchanging money for Bitcoins. Even with Bitcoin only available to a limited number of countries, AML regulations are causing problems for users already.

gleetree 15y ago

I've transferred several thousand dollars worth of bitcoins in the last few weeks to a Chinese bank account - the exchange I bought them on didn't know what I wanted the bitcoins for. And the Chinese exchange I sold them on didn't know where I got them from. The act of buying the bitcoins contains no information about their future use. The fees were much lower than Western Union, and since Bitcoin prices are volatile I actually made money on most of the transfers. Bitinstant.com already allows you to send money to anyone in the world using paypal via bitcoin anonymously. Edit - the point is that bitcoin makes it possible for individuals or small companies to move funds to virtually anywhere in the world. A big multinational corporation facilitating this becomes unnecessary. At some point it will occur to people just to move the bitcoins and not bother converting them to a local currency.

maaku 15y ago

I don't think you understand what bitcoin is... The point (mentioned in the article) is that while such regulation does exist, there's absolutely no way to apply it to bitcoin, if used properly.

jbm 15y ago

I'm guessing you didn't meant to come off as bigoted but I have a lot of friends named Mohammad, none of whom have any legal issues, nor are any of them members of terrorist organizations. If the attitude towards me sending money to one of them for any number of legitimate reasons is baseless suspicion, maybe many people like me will wind up looking for alternatives - like bitcoin. At the expense of karma, allow me to add that in an odious legal atmosphere where prosecutors consider photographing chicken coops as terrorism, it won't just be people with funny terrorist-sounding names winding up using Bitcoin.

GFischer 15y ago
I'm not the poster, but I also work for a regulated industry, and I have to comply with those regulations, which I certainly don't agree with (and even campaigned against). I also guess that Smirnoff didn't mean it that way either. So, it's probably not Western Union who's to blame when sending money to Mohammed (or José Rodriguez which is an extremely common name here) is a big hassle for all parties involved, it's the regulators. The only thing WU can be blamed for is for working within the rules. It's not bigotry by WU. As he said, if services start providing money transfers (using Bitcoin or whatever) without complying with regulations, they'll probably will have to be based somewhere outside the US's influence, and will eventually be blocked and impeded in the US (see: online poker, only worse)

makomk 15y ago

Of course, right now Bitcoin also serves a fraction of the number of countries that Western Union does. Basically, unless you're in Europe, North America or Australia you almost certainly don't have any way of exchanging money for Bitcoins. Even with Bitcoin only available to a limited number of countries, AML regulations are causing problems for users already.