MoneyGram Rolling Out Payments System in Asia – Are Ripple and XRP Ready for Launch?

MoneyGram is expanding its remittance business across Southeast Asia.

The leading payments company launched an online presence in Singapore in February, and Anil Kapur, the company’s head of Asia Pacific and South Asia, tells Digital News Asia that the company is now exploring whether it should bring the MoneyGram app to Malaysia.

MoneyGram has also recently announced a partnership with Global Money Express Co., Ltd (GME), one of the largest money transfer and payment fintech companies in South Korea. The World Bank reports that South Korea’s peer-to-peer payments and remittance market has approximately $13.4 billion in annual remittance outflows.

The new partnership will particularly benefit customers who send money from South Korea to China and South Asia, according to MoneyGram.

Although MoneyGram is a top user of Ripple’s XRP-based remittance product known as ODL, the company has not revealed which corridors it plans to support in the future. To date, Ripple has officially launched ODL in Mexico, the Philippines and Australia, with Brazil on the way. The company says it plans to launch across Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America this year, but has not released specific dates on when that may happen.

In the last two months, the Texas-based MoneyGram has seen its digital transactions surge amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In the quarter ending March 31, 2020, MoneyGram’s digital transactions grew 57% year-over-year while walk-in transactions dropped 6%. In addition, digital transactions represented 18% of all MoneyGram remittances at the end of the first quarter.

In April, the company’s digital transactions rose 81% year-over-year as online remittances grabbed 28% of MoneyGram transactions. In May, the company reported 100% year-over-year digital transaction growth, according to Kamila Chytil, MoneyGram International’s chief operating officer.

The company says it’s utilizing XRP to power 10% of its transaction volume between Mexico and the US.

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