Interesting. Is there any reading material available for how this monopoly is maintained? Are the country’s leaders being paid a cut for allowing WU to be the only money transmitter or something like that?

Most banks here support between 5 and 15 remittance companies. I wouldn't call it a monopoly.

Exclusivity agreements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Union#Anti-competitive...

That makes sense. I would not have thought even a poor country’s bank would agree to that. But it does not seem to be a problem in El Salvador today.

The situation is also getting better based on this report linked in Wikipedia:

http://www.remesas.org/files/exclusivityWP9.pdf

Most banks are not WU exclusive in El Salvador.

People gloss over what goes into money transfer. There is substantial risk, verification of identity of recipient, etc. With Bitcoin the services are simply not offered, so it's not really comparable. You get irreversible money transfer to an bitcoin address nothing more and nothing less. Western Union's services go well beyond that.

I figured, I just thought I might ask for a source to lend credence to any conspiracy theory.

Not true anymore. Moneygram and Ria Envia have been growing very fast to Latin America and there are numerous smaller firms stealing market share in the digital send space.

> Because WU has a monopoly on remittance payments in multiple countries.

Not in El Salvador. A quick Google search shows that:

A mid sized bank supports about 9 remittance companies. And a credit union supporting about 15.