Saad Ullah
One More Option
The American financial services company’s president, Odilon Almeidasaid in a video release that Western Union is the most suitable global money transfer company to accept cryptos. Odilon said “Cryptocurrency might become one more option for a way for assets to be exchanged between people and countries. If that happens, we would be ready to launch.”
According to the finance and asset transfer company, there are three major issues that cryptos need to overcome before the company can start their support. These are volatility, compliance and governance. Currently, no cryptocurrency satisfies all three areas. He offered Western Union’s expertise to the industry as the firm “devotes substantial resources to all of those three challenges.”
Ripple Partnership
Odilon confirmed in the video release that his company has partnered with Ripple Labs and was doing a number of tests to see if it could leverage its experience and the power of blockchain to further bring down costs and time associated with global payment transfers. In this regard, the company has already filed a patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this summer. The patent caters to repeated transfers and the titled patent “Recurring Transfer Notifications and Secure Transfers” is full of cryptocurrency integration.
“Western Union is ready today to adopt any kind of currency. We already operate with 130 currencies. If we, one day, feel like it’s the right strategy to introduce cryptocurrencies to our platform, technology-wise, it’s just one more currency.”
Western Union is the largest payment transfer firm in the world, with offices and centers in over 200 countries. In 2016 alone, it served more than 150 million customers in sending USD 80 billion worth of transactions. Blockchain and cryptocurrency integration would be major benefit to the company.
Saad Ullah
