How do remittance companies stack up against TransferWise on Google Trends?

The numbers from Google Trends below show how various companies focusing on international remittances stack up against TransferWise. TransferWise is the flat line, and the other companies' numbers are in relation to TransferWise's. Companies with a large offline foot print such as Western Union and Moneygram are in the lead world wide. Xoom, a remittance company acquired by PayPal in 2015, also do well.

If we zoom in on the UK, the story changes. While Western Union is still the most Googled brand in the remittance industry, the lead shrinks from 13X to 2.2X over TransferWise. Over time, the declining share of search volume of Western Union becomes quite clear. This might explain part of the reason that they are so eager to build their own online currency transfer platform.

World Wide

TransferWise is flat line.

Companies	Search interest relative to TransferWise
western union	13.00
moneygram	4.14
xoom	1.38
transferwise	1.00
post office money	0.47
worldremit	0.39
ria money transfer	0.24
azimo	0.20
transfast	0.17
moneycorp	0.17
caxton fx	0.14
fairfx	0.14
remitly	0.12
currencyfair	0.09
hifx	0.08
transfergo	0.06
worldfirst	0.02
ukforex	0.01
tawipay	0.00

United Kingdom

Companies	Search interest relative to TransferWise
western union	2.19
transferwise	1.00
post office money	0.83
moneygram	0.58
moneycorp	0.41
fairfx	0.33
caxton fx	0.28
azimo	0.22
worldremit	0.22
transfergo	0.13
hifx	0.09
currencyfair	0.06
xoom	0.06
ria money transfer	0.05
ukforex	0.04
worldfirst	0.04
transfast	0.02
remitly	0.00
tawipay	0.00

If we look at the market over a longer period of time, the decline of Western Union's share of search volume becomes clear.

Greeks use Revolut's app to skirt capital controls

Judging from the interest on Google for the prepaid card and payments app from the London based fintech company Revolut, the are experiencing rapid growth at the moment. Interestingly, most of the searches are coming from Athens. 

With capital controls still being in place in Greece, and many Greeks having a hard time getting cash out, it seems like locals have discovered the benefits of having a foreign card. A bit of Googling shows that it is being recommended as a way to skirt restrictions. A novel use of the company's product. Will fintech play an increasing role in the future in times of financial uncertainty?

Revolut jumps ahead of Azimo in search volume and turns off their invite program.

Revolut jumps ahead of Azimo in search volume in January 2016. Quite an impressive increase in interest for Revolut's card and mobile wallet. Was the interest too much for the company? A couple of days ago, they turned off their invite program.

Revolut jumps in search volume and is now on par with Azimo on Google Trends