Comment by kristofferR | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kristofferR | Hacker News Reader

I'm amazed MoneyGram is still in business. I had to deal with them last week and it was hell.

Their reliance on phone support for most operations is absurd. I saw five people attempt to use the kiosk - and all were required to call phone support for various reasons! The kiosk complained about DOB missing (date of birth I guess?), yet there wasn't any field left unfilled. Changes in unpaid/draft transactions resulted in duplicate ones instead, and they could only be deleted by calling support. The kiosk software was filled with dumb errors like that. I could go on an on.

Using cryptocurrencies seems like a good idea, but I'd bet just improving the kiosk software to make phone support a rarity instead of practically a requirement would be way more efficient at reducing cost.

The money remittance market is a very interesting problem. The key to understanding why moneygram is still around is by getting a good understanding of global banking and associated regulation & fees along with top immigration/immigration corridors and consumer behaviour in these corridors.

Most money transfers happen from a stable high net worth economies (USA,UK,Germany, UAE, Saudi Arabia) to growing economies(India, Mexico, Brazil, Philippines) and following the emmigration/immigration corridor.

The money transfer market is more akin to a marketplace with disparate sender-receiver situations. Sender banking infrastructure typically is more sophisticated but disjointed with the receivers banking infrastructure.

Learn more about these patterns in this document. https://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPROSPECTS/Resources/3...

Can you explain why these situations led them to be secure in business?

Along with Western Union, it’s the only viable option for sending money to people who don’t have a bank account and can’t use a computer.

It’s taken years for my wife to persuade her parents in Brazil to try Azimo or Transferwise. We were using Moneygram until last year.

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