Could a remittance provider like Western Union be classified as a marketplace?
Cross-Border Payments
Asked by Question Bot05/Feb/20141 answer
1 Answer
F
Faisal Khan
Answered 05/Feb/2014
I'm going to go out on a limb and say, No. For Escrow based services, the company is (usually) not in the business for which the escrow is being provided for. For example, real-estate or domain sales, etc.
Western Union's license (as an MSB / MT) within the US and as a MTO for rest of the world explicitly allows them to do a singular function, agent-based or direct user based transfer of funds. As per various laws, Western Union is not sitting on Client's money. They are using their agent's money to funnel the transactions and the money a client pays, is with the agent, adjusted against their balance.
Western Union's license (as an MSB / MT) within the US and as a MTO for rest of the world explicitly allows them to do a singular function, agent-based or direct user based transfer of funds. As per various laws, Western Union is not sitting on Client's money. They are using their agent's money to funnel the transactions and the money a client pays, is with the agent, adjusted against their balance.