Source: Western UnionWestern Union has filed three trademark applications associated with digital assets, suggesting that the international money transfer company may be preparing to offer cryptocurrency-related services.
In a tweet Tuesday, trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis said the three marks cover various applications, including portfolio management, digital asset and derivatives trading, security token issuance, and brokerage and insurance services.
“Western Union filed 3 trademark applications claiming projects for financial virtual currency exchange + banking + insurance + commodity transfer and crypto trading + brokerage issuing valuable tokens… and much more,” Kondoudis said in the tweet.
Western Union is a leading provider of cross-border money transfer services. The company has been relatively cautious about its crypto interactions thus far, but has expressed interest in the industry.
In 2015, the international money transfer company partnered with Ripple to settle remittance payments. However, this partnership did not materialize and Ripple began its partnership with MoneyGram, a Western Union competitor, in 2019.
In June 2018, Western Union CEO Hikmet Ersek said he had no plans to add a cryptocurrency transfer solution to his services any time soon, according to a MarketWatch report. “Consumers tell us what they want. People don't pay their hospital bills in crypto,” he said at the time.
Ersek also mentioned that central banks are generally skeptical of crypto assets, citing this as a reason why the company has no plans to expand its services to digital assets. According to Ersek, central banks are not willing to give up control of their local currency to move to a digital or decentralized alternative.
He said that "nations are built on flags, constitutions, borders and currencies," adding that no central bank hosting a reserve currency would consider relinquishing that kind of control.
Growing adoption pushes Western Union to change stance
Apparently, the increasing adoption of blockchain technology and increased competition in the international money transfer space has forced Western Union to change its strong stance against cryptocurrencies and exploit this innovation.
The move comes as leading cryptocurrency platform Coinbase has begun testing a remittance program for recipients in Mexico. According to the CEO of the Mexican cryptocurrency exchange Bitso, around 5% of remittances sent from the United States to Mexico have been processed in cryptocurrencies so far this year.
In late November, Bitso co-founder Daniel Vogel said that cross-border Bitcoin and altcoin remittances were on the rise, with a weekly growth rate of 15%, reaching €28 per week.