Ripple Partners with MoneyGram for Cross-Border Payments

• Ripple Partners with MoneyGram for Cross-Border Payments

Ripple Partners with MoneyGram for Cross-Border Payments

One of the leading money transfer firms in the world, MoneyGram, recently announced its partnership with Bitcoin rival Ripple to use XRP in its payments network. According to a press release on MoneyGram’s official website, the alliance between the two enables the use of “digital asset XRP to lower costs and increase payment speed”.

Founded nearly 80 years ago and currently a NASDAQ traded company with headquarters in Dallas, Texas, MoneyGram is currently the second largest money transfer firm in the world – second only to Western Union. To gain insight into the significance of this partnership, take note that according to Forbes.com, in the summer of 2017, an Alibaba partnered company offered MoneyGram $1.2 Billion to acquire it. As well, MoneyGram operates in more than 200 counties in approximately 350,000 shops.

Great News for XRP Investors

With steep declines in the cryptocurrency market this week, the news comes as a breath of fresh air to concerned investors. Over the past week, Ripple took a steady downturn and went from being as high as $3.68 on January 4th to as low as $1.62 on January 11th. The announcement, which came early Thursday morning, reflected clearly in the hearts of investors as XRP’s price surged $0.50 in a seemingly vertical line from $1.75 to $2.25.

Many crypto enthusiasts argued against Ripple’s use case and its centralized nature, citing that while the partnerships may be of great use for the Ripple platform in which money transfers would be conducted on, XRP would be seemingly worthless. With MoneyGram’s announcement and clarifying that the native currency from Ripple Labs will be used, these rumors can be (for now) laid to rest.

A Win for Global Customers

Ripple comes into the picture to help alleviate hefty transaction fees often burdened by the customer. For example, sending $100 to Germany from the United States from a MoneyGram partnered store costs $12.00, an astonishing 12% transaction fee. This information was found out by simply visiting their website and clicking on the “estimate fees” tab, in which you can view the cost of sending payments from your respective location to another via various options.

The importance of lowering costs for global customers include many customers in underdeveloped countries who send money to loved ones overseas as a means of survival. Although $12 may not seem like a large amount to many Americans who rarely use the service, it’s can be a monthly wage to someone in countries that offer distinctly poverty-level hourly wages, as seen below.

Although Ripple tends to be seen as an outsider in the blockchain community for its ties to central banks, its immediate benefits to the underprivileged community could do a lot of good around the globe.