MoneyGram has partnered with the Stellar Development Foundation to enable consumers to send money with the popular stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC).
MoneyGram bets on stablecoins
Yesterday announced MoneyGram states that it supports crypto wallets connected to the Stellar network. By partnering with Circle, MoneyGram will also enable local fiat withdrawals using the USDC stablecoin.
United Texas Bank will act as a settlement bank to complete the process within the regulatory framework.
“As crypto and digital currencies become increasingly important, we are especially optimistic about the potential of stablecoins as a method to streamline cross-border payments.” said Alex Holmes, MoneyGram chairman and CEO.
The partnership is expected to launch in select countries at the end of 2021. The expanded rollout of the partnership is planned for 2022. Denelle Dixon, the CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation, says:
“A new group of money users will be able to convert their cash in and out of USDC, giving them access to fast and affordable digital asset services that may have been out of reach before.”
MoneyGram chooses Stellar
MoneyGram is no stranger to the blockchain industry. For example, in June 2019, the company entered into a partnership with Ripple to collaborate on cross-border payments and currency transactions with digital assets.
However, the deal came to a head due to uncertainty surrounding the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Ripple. MoneyGram has ended its partnership with Ripple in the first quarter of 2021 for this reason.
It is not surprising that MoneyGram is now going to work together with Stellar. Stellar was launched by Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb after he left Ripple in 2014. The two companies are therefore quite similar.
Since the announcement of MoneyGram, the XLM price has risen sharply. At the time of writing, the price of 1 token is more than 15% higher than a day ago.
