(Kitco News) – The worldwide cash switch firm Western Union seems to be getting ready to supply crypto-related companies based mostly on a number of lately filed trademark purposes.
Trademark lawyer Mike Kondoudis highlighted the filings with the USA Patent and Trademark Workplace in a tweet posted on Tuesday, which notes that the corporate filed their submissions on Oct. 18.
Western Union is in search of clearance to supply quite a lot of companies, together with the power to handle wallets, change digital property and commodities derivatives, difficulty tokens of worth and provide brokerage and insurance coverage companies.
#WesternUnion has filed 3 trademark purposes claiming plans for
▶️ Monetary + Banking + Insurance coverage
▶️ Digital forex change + switch
▶️ Commodity and Crypto buying and selling + brokerage
▶️ Issuing tokens of worth
…and rather more#Web3 #Metaverse #Cryptocurrency #NFT #DeFi pic.twitter.com/YvKysvj3mq
— Mike Kondoudis (@KondoudisLaw) October 25, 2022
The character of the purposes made by Western Union means that the corporate intends to launch its personal digital forex change and cryptocurrency token in some unspecified time in the future sooner or later, together with plans to handle and administer digital property.
Up so far, the agency has proven a substantial amount of warning about partaking with blockchain expertise. As a serious supplier of cross-border remittance companies, the power of blockchain expertise to facilitate cash transfers is simple, however the state of growth of the expertise and lack of regulatory readability have held it again from going all in.
With competitors within the remittance market changing into extra aggressive, Western Union now seems to be increasing its choices in a bid to stay related.
Earlier in 2022, the highest U.S.-based crypto change Coinbase initiated a remittance trial for recipients in Mexico, the world’s second-largest remittance market – posing a direct problem to Western Union which presently dominates the Mexico market.
The trial featured a service that allowed customers to ship U.S. {dollars} and withdraw Mexican pesos. A number of different service suppliers have additionally entered the Mexican market over the course of 2022, and a number of other monetary inclusion options have emerged to supply alternate options to conventional remittance companies.
Regardless of the rise in competitors, Western Union remains one of many largest gamers within the world remittance business and is well-positioned to combine developments in expertise that assist enhance its companies and cut back the related prices.
As former Western Union World Cash Switch President Odilon Almeida as soon as stated, the agency is “higher positioned to profit from the crypto-currency motion within the long-term than any start-up.”
“Cryptocurrency may develop into another possibility for a manner for property to be exchanged between folks and nations. If that occurs, we might be able to launch,” Almeida added. “Western Union is already higher outfitted to unravel for such variables as a result of it already strikes cash throughout 130 currencies and devotes substantial assets to all of these three challenges.”
The competitors is just going to extend from right here, nevertheless, as quite a few multinational corporations – together with PayPal and MasterCard – have lately thrown their hats into the remittance ring.
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