According to WSJ, Western Union and MoneyGram International, both are studying ways their customers could use their services to send and receive money transfers in bitcoins. This could be a major breakthrough to Bitcoin community. It will be easier for someone who has bitcoins to convert them to cash, instead of going to local bitcoins they will just go to western union / moneygram and cash out.

We’ve been contacted by folks who are doing various things in this space to see if there’s opportunities for us to help enable greater functionality for some of these [Bitcoin companies],” said Peter Ohser, MoneyGram’s senior vice president of U.S. and Canada. “But we’ve not committed and don’t have any imminent plans to announce anything.” Source Foxbuisness

Both companies run remittance networks commonly used by immigrants to send money to friends and family members in foreign countries. Western Union also operates a business-solutions unit that helps companies send payments to other businesses.

Both firms have no immediate intentions to jump in the bitcoin wagon, though both say the increasing popularity of the bitcoin has prompted them to consider bitcoin in the future.

Only problem is with the current volatility you have to be insane to think a fiat currency exchange will take bitcoin seriously. This month bitcoin’s value has traded between a high of $266 and a low of $50, then up again to $160. I think both firms are studying volatility of market and waiting for stable times.

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