PayPal’s new instant cash service at Walmart has lower fees than Western Union, and it’s faster. Does that mean an end for Western Union is now in sight?

Photo by Alistair MacRobert on Unsplash

If you’ve ever used Western Union to receive or send cash, you know that it has its flaws. For starters — it’s expensive and it takes too long. It could take up to 4 days with a cost of $69.99 for a single transaction. The cost depends on the shipping option your sender chooses. It’s more expensive for a person to send you money.

For example, if you’re in Las Vegas and “lost your wallet,” (at the roulette table), it would cost someone at least $5 to send you money. That $5 send option is bad because it forces the sender to go to a Western Union location. Your friend is nice enough to bail you out, they should not have to go to the store, too. However, the option with the cheapest transaction fee leaves the sender no choice.

Photo by Carl Ibale on Unsplash

However, with PayPal, that person can instantly send you money from their phone or computer. It doesn’t take minutes or days, and it doesn’t cost you a large percentage of YOUR money. PayPal happens almost instantly and it costs $3.00. You can get the cash at almost any Walmart location.

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Walmart Partners with PayPal 💸

Thanks to a new partnership between Walmart and PayPal, there are now THREE different ways you could instantly get cash by using PayPal at Walmart:

At Money Services or Service Desk Locations

At the ATM

At the Register

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According to PayPal’s website, the fee is about $3 and it takes seconds, literally seconds, for a friend or family member to send you money that you could pick up at over 5,000 Walmarts across the USA.

How is Western Union going to answer this?

Western Union Partners with Visa to Provide Global Payment

Earlier this week, Western Union seemingly answered back with a partnership with Visa. According to a press release, Western Union will specifically parter with Visa Direct, which offers one-touch payment.

The partnership will improve the network’s speed and transparency. However, what happens to the people using Western Union for cash? Will that process be expedited, or is this process only for the credit card holders?

You can read more about the Western Union and Visa partnership here. https://www.apnews.com/Business%20Wire/a5c4920854044361a79713d01d2c7fb5

What does this mean in the Long Run?

It is HIGHLY unlikely that middle-service payment services like PayPal or Western Union will survive in the long run against Peer-to-Peer services like Bitcoin. We shall see…

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Drew Mailen is the founder of BountyBase and TheBlockchainWriter.com. He enjoys cooking and surrounding himself with people smarter than he is. He takes pride in direct messaging strangers on LinkedIn. He loves his grandma, an exercise enthusiast named Grace that still does daily gym workouts at 84 years old. You can find more about his work here: TheBlockchainWriter.com