user492: Minneapolis has a large community of immigrants from Somalia.  They have been accustomed to sending money to relatives there.  One person among them sent money to a terrorist organization that had an agent in Somalia.  Seemingly in response to that incident, local banks, fearing liability, stopped providing the service of wiring money to Somalia.  One person abused the system, so it's made unavailable to everyone.
Could bitcoins be used instead?  Could that service be quickly made available to the Somalis?  E.g., how much access to the internet in Somalia would be needed?  Would it be sufficient for those who were in the business of receiving wire-transfers there to have internet access?  What liability issues might arise for those who inform those in need of this system of how to do it?

user323: Thanks to eWallets, one needs very little access to the internet to operate on the Bitcoin network. Provided you trust those, it should be as easy as operating PayPal.
The main problem though is getting Bitcoins in Somalia, how stable the Bitcoin value is, and how much the fees are.
There are no exchanges supporting anything but the major currencies, so someone wanting to get some coins would have to earn them by offering some goods or services online. Because of this people might not be willing to trade in Bitcoins, as they would not be able to transfer them to their local currency.
Currently, the value of Bitcoins is increasing quite fast and nobody's sure where it'll stop. The problem is, that is can go down in value just as fast, an then anyone holding savings in Bitcoins rather than a traditional currency would be at a loss.
The current version of the Bitcoin client requires one to pay a fee based on the size of the transaction. It isn't much if you are transferring a couple Bitcoins, but when you want to send equivalents of a couple cents, it can eat a noticeable part of your transaction. If the value of Bitcoins will go up, the equivalent value of the transactions in real currency will increase, thus making every transfer of Bitcoins more expensive. At some point, using Bitcoins for transferring low-value currency will stop being feasible.
All in all, yes, Bitcoins are a viable replacement of the traditional banking system and can be used pretty much anywhere, but the infrastructure for using Bitcoins might not yet be available everywhere for wide adoption.

user15689: i am in Somalia, Mogadishu. Bitcoin can be a solution for Somalia as its simple money transfer service but but INTERNET connection availability is quite bad.. for me,  i wanna start bitcoin service in Somalia! any idea would support?

user24636: I'm Software engineering major, Somali-American. I am working on online wallet which will be an alternative for sending money to Somalia. The website will be functional by the end of march 20 2015. 

user153: Hawala (sometimes referred to as hundi) involves a trust relationship between the two hawaldars.  The hawalder who receives the funds (in Minneapolis, for example) is a trusted partner to the other hawalder who disburses the funds (in Somalia, for example).
With Bitcoin, this relationship between hawalders becomes unnecessary. These hawalders simply become exchangers operating independently.
There are plenty of methods in which bitcoins can be acquired by the person wishing to send money, so the remaining gap is finding an exchanger who will trade shillings, dollars, euro or whatever for bitcoins within Somalia, for example.
Bitcoin is uniquely positioned to make this possible however, due to its properties where transactions are non-reversible, extremely low in cost (transaction fees), and where funds become available for spending right away (in about an hour, for example).
This makes it possible for a network of individuals to do the grunt work function where the exchange involves transaction sizes as low as $20 worth of bitcoins, for example.  With transaction fees being trivially low, small, independent exchangers can trade bitcoins with each other for immediate needs but when the supply of shillings, dollars and euro needs to be replenished they can trade with slightly larger exchanges.
Those larger exchanges would then trade bitcoins either directly or indirectly with Bitcoin exchanges that interact with banks or with parties that essentially offer these banking services.
When bitcoins then are seen as something with value because they can easily and inexpensively be cashed out, on demand, they might then start being used for trade alongside shillings, dollars and euro.
And that is where things start to become interesting.

user886: The system the Somalis (and many others) have been using to send money around the world for centuries is called hawala. Monetary futurist Jon Matonis calls Bitcoin a potential replacement for hawala.
Right now, I suspect that Somalis would be hard-pressed to use Bitcoin for personal remittances, owing to the lack of local exchangers and Bitcoin-accepting merchants on the ground. However, traditional hawaladars might well use Bitcoin as a means of settling accounts among themselves, while taking receipts and making payouts in the locally-preferred fiat currencies.

492: <p>Minneapolis has a large community of immigrants from Somalia.  They have been accustomed to sending money to relatives there.  One person among them sent money to a terrorist organization that had an agent in Somalia.  Seemingly in response to that incident, local banks, fearing liability, stopped providing the service of wiring money to Somalia.  One person abused the system, so it's made unavailable to everyone.</p>

<p>Could bitcoins be used instead?  Could that service be quickly made available to the Somalis?  E.g., how much access to the internet in Somalia would be needed?  Would it be sufficient for those who were in the business of receiving wire-transfers there to have internet access?  What liability issues might arise for those who inform those in need of this system of how to do it?</p>
 323: <p>Thanks to eWallets, one needs very little access to the internet to operate on the Bitcoin network. Provided you trust those, it should be as easy as operating PayPal.</p>

<p>The main problem though is getting Bitcoins in Somalia, how stable the Bitcoin value is, and how much the fees are.</p>

<p>There are no exchanges supporting anything but the major currencies, so someone wanting to get some coins would have to earn them by offering some goods or services online. Because of this people might not be willing to trade in Bitcoins, as they would not be able to transfer them to their local currency.</p>

<p>Currently, the value of Bitcoins is increasing quite fast and nobody's sure where it'll stop. The problem is, that is can go down in value just as fast, an then anyone holding savings in Bitcoins rather than a traditional currency would be at a loss.</p>

<p>The current version of the Bitcoin client requires one to pay a fee based on the size of the transaction. It isn't much if you are transferring a couple Bitcoins, but when you want to send equivalents of a couple cents, it can eat a noticeable part of your transaction. If the value of Bitcoins will go up, the equivalent value of the transactions in real currency will increase, thus making every transfer of Bitcoins more expensive. At some point, using Bitcoins for transferring low-value currency will stop being feasible.</p>

<p>All in all, yes, Bitcoins are a viable replacement of the traditional banking system and can be used pretty much anywhere, but the infrastructure for using Bitcoins might not yet be available everywhere for wide adoption.</p>
 15689: <p>i am in Somalia, Mogadishu. Bitcoin can be a solution for Somalia as its simple money transfer service but but INTERNET connection availability is quite bad.. for me,  i wanna start bitcoin service in Somalia! any idea would support?</p>
 24636: <p>I'm Software engineering major, Somali-American. I am working on online wallet which will be an alternative for sending money to Somalia. The website will be functional by the end of march 20 2015. </p>
 153: <p>Hawala (sometimes referred to as hundi) involves a trust relationship between the two hawaldars.  The hawalder who receives the funds (in Minneapolis, for example) is a trusted partner to the other hawalder who disburses the funds (in Somalia, for example).</p>

<p>With Bitcoin, this relationship between hawalders becomes unnecessary. These hawalders simply become exchangers operating independently.</p>

<p>There are plenty of methods in which bitcoins can be acquired by the person wishing to send money, so the remaining gap is finding an exchanger who will trade shillings, dollars, euro or whatever for bitcoins within Somalia, for example.</p>

<p>Bitcoin is uniquely positioned to make this possible however, due to its properties where transactions are non-reversible, extremely low in cost (transaction fees), and where funds become available for spending right away (in about an hour, for example).</p>

<p>This makes it possible for a network of individuals to do the grunt work function where the exchange involves transaction sizes as low as $20 worth of bitcoins, for example.  With transaction fees being trivially low, small, independent exchangers can trade bitcoins with each other for immediate needs but when the supply of shillings, dollars and euro needs to be replenished they can trade with slightly larger exchanges.</p>

<p>Those larger exchanges would then trade bitcoins either directly or indirectly with Bitcoin exchanges that interact with banks or with parties that essentially offer these banking services.</p>

<p>When bitcoins then are seen as something with value because they can easily and inexpensively be cashed out, on demand, they might then start being used for trade alongside shillings, dollars and euro.</p>

<p>And that is where things start to become interesting.</p>
 886: <p>The system the Somalis (and many others) have been using to send money around the world for centuries is called hawala. Monetary futurist Jon Matonis calls Bitcoin a potential replacement for hawala.</p>

<p>Right now, I suspect that Somalis would be hard-pressed to use Bitcoin for personal remittances, owing to the lack of local exchangers and Bitcoin-accepting merchants on the ground. However, traditional hawaladars might well use Bitcoin as a means of settling accounts among themselves, while taking receipts and making payouts in the locally-preferred fiat currencies.</p>
