MoneyGram, a remittance-focused company, announced a new pilot in the Stellar blockchain after inking a partnership with the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF). According to the blog post, both parties agreed to launch a live cash-in and cash-out pilot in the US.<\/p>\n
That said, participants can deposit cash into their wallets at participating MoneyGram locations and also send payments internationally via Stellar\u2019s USDC. Also, the pilot allows participants to exchange USDC for any fiat currency supported on the MoneyGram platform. \u201cElectronic wallets, app-based financial services, and digital assets are more popular than ever, and one payments company has taken note of the growing adoption of these innovative products and services,\u201d the Stellar Development Foundation noted.<\/p>\n
Moreover, settlements are nearly instantaneous via USDC payments, which expects to accelerate \u2018fund collection, improve efficiency, and reduce risk.\u2019 \u201cAt its core, this unique partnership embraces the reality that, even though the utility and adoption of digital assets is growing, cash isn\u2019t going anywhere. Many markets across the world still run on cash, and these markets often serve large un- and under-banked populations,\u201d the SDC pointed out.<\/p>\n
In September, MoneyGram inked the formal partnership with Stellar. The remittance-focused company is a former Ripple partner, while Stellar is a competitor of the blockchain firm behind the development of XRP.<\/p>\n
The new service is expected to be available worldwide in 2022, as the pilots will go live in \u2018select markets\u2019 during the rest of this year. Moreover, United Texas Bank will serve as the settlement bank between MoneyGram and Circle, which is the issuer of USDC stablecoin.<\/p>\n
In May, Moneygram announced that it had partnered with the Bitcoin ATM operator, Coinme to facilitate the Bitcoin transactions services. The MoneyGram and Coinme duo is set to take 4% of every transaction, along with a flat fee of $2.75. In addition, Walmart-based MoneyGram locations will charge an extra $2.<\/p>\n