> Why does another company not come in to steal 9% to 24% of the GDP of the whole country?
It's less than that.
$ 400 million commissions / $ 24 640 million GDP x 100 = 1.66% of GDP.
I am not familiar with how revenue is shared between the remitting companies, but part of those commissions are set to offset the costs of operating the remittance network in El Salvador. Operating offices, armored trucks, complaiace, bank staff wages and security expenses.
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?
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.
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.
