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In a new interview, MoneyGram CEO Alex Holmes says Ripple’s XRP-based xRapid, an on-demand liquidity solution, will improve its money transfer capabilities in a dynamic way.
The Dallas-based money-transfer company MoneyGram has partnered with San Francisco-based fintech Ripple as its primary partner for cross-border payments. MoneyGram’s stock jumped 168% on Tuesday following Ripple’s announcement that it will buy $30 million of MoneyGram shares at a big premium of $4.10 per share. Ripple also has the option of purchasing another $20 million worth of shares over the next two years.
The strategic move has Holmes bullish on the future of blockchain technology solutions and the role of digital assets for the flow of money around the world.
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Speaking with KRLD Newsradio 1080 AM, MoneyGram’s Holmes says,
“We’re going through what we call a digital transformation to improve the company’s business model and really think differently about how we interact with customers and how we put customers at the center of everything they do. Today’s day and age begins with digital technologies and capabilities.
For us Ripple brings a really interesting capability to our service, and as we look to evolve our operations to take advantage of cutting-edge, proven technologies and become more efficient, Ripple brings exactly that with their xRapid XRP platform which really will enable us to improve our global settlement and foreign exchange and liquidity management processes in a pretty dynamic way.”
MoneyGram has partners in over 200 countries around the world with access to a “couple billion bank accounts”, which could dramatically increase Ripple’s global exposure.
“Actually moving money across borders is very complicated and having operations in 200 countries is extremely complicated. And you have to have on-demand liquidity to settle with all of our partners. The way our business really works is that our partners that we have in all these countries are collecting money or pay out money on our behalf to our consumers, and then we have to settle with them every night – collect our money or top up their money if they’ve done payouts for us.”
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Despite the company’s best efforts, Holmes describes the global system as clunky, slow and costly.
“So here comes Ripple with blockchain technology and their XRP service that is really going to enable us to move a lot of those needs to a much more real-time, on-demand liquidity. So for example, if we move $10 million in a day in a country, we have to have literally $10 million in that country to pay off those transactions at the end of the day. But not every day is the same and the amounts differ.
So what you can do with blockchain technology is move that money in real time and make sure that you’re matching off your funding needs with the payment flows much more dynamically…
This blockchain technology with the xRapid platform that Ripple provides really begins to simplify that process.”
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