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A comment on Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted. Parent comment

Re:Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is acc... by Pfhreak on Friday November 20, 2015 @12:34PM (#10602477)
I'm curious if this could also be used to help with remittances. I have several friends who emigrated from countries around the world, and they struggle to find an easy way to remit to their parents. Bitcoin seems so close, but it's difficult for their folks to get it converted to local currency. The fees and hurdles they currently deal with are outrageous, and while it looks like the shift card is US only, it seems like there may be an opportunity here.
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Re:Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is acc... by Symbiote on Friday November 20, 2015 @03:09PM (#10603508)
Since emigrating this summer, I've transferred about £25k ($40k) using TransferWise and been very pleased with the way the service works. I paid far less in fees than any other service I could find a quote for. I was concerned that being in a small European country with its own currency would mean payments took longer, but this wasn't the case.

They're based in the UK, and properly regulated by both the UK and US.

You get a free transfer using a referral link: https://transferwise.com/u/61f8ad

Or use the non-referral link if you prefer: https://transferwise.com/

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Re:Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is acc... by aianus on Friday November 20, 2015 @11:01PM (#10605519)
Seems to cost ~1% which is better than banks but still $400(!) on $40k. I use Bitcoin to transfer money from USD to THB and get better than spot if I time it right.
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Re:Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is acc... by jarek on Friday November 20, 2015 @01:22PM (#10602833)
Yes, there's a big opportunity. But U.S. customer-facing financial companies - especially startups - have been really bad at doing stuff outside the U.S.

Witness the darling Square getting its lunch eaten by iZettle and Paypal (!) even in the UK, to say nothing of rest of Europe, to say nothing of rest of the world.

Everyone and their dog has been trying to solve remittances with technology at least since Stephenson wrote Cryptonomicon. Ultimately it's much less a tech problem than a human problem.

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