Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Western Union was thinking of acquiring MoneyGram. Western Union officially denied the story after the stock prices of both companies shot through the roof.

The two companies are the biggest players in the $500 billion dollar remittance industry, according to JMP Securities analyst David Scharf. 

“That combined footprint of 850,000 agents is considerably larger than the top 10 or 20 fast food chains and other brands like Starbucks combined,” Scharf says.

But JP Morgan analyst Tien-Tsin Huang says they have had to lower fees because of competition from new services, banks and new entrants such as Wal-Mart.

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