Per a press release shared with Bitcoinist, MoneyGram and Stellar are strengthening their cooperation. The payment company has begun the deployment of a crypto-to-cash service on this blockchain. This product will operate as the “first of its kind global on and off-ramp” service.
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The crypto to cash bridge is available, according to the press release, in several remittance markets across Kenya, the Philippines, the United States, and Canada. MoneyGram expects the Stellar-based service to be expanded to at least 7 more countries by the end of June.
The crypto-to-cash services are aimed at providing people with access to digital assets and improving MoneyGram’s customers experience in sending and receiving remittances. In order to achieve this objective, the service will be supported by Circle’s stablecoin USDC Coin (USDC).
The partners expect users to be able to use cryptocurrencies for new use cases, to remove friction from the process of exchanging fiat for crypto, to increase financial inclusion, and to reduce costs from the process of sending cross-border transactions.
For the first time, as the release claims, this process will be instantly settled with low cost and high accessibility. In order words, users will be able to send U.S. dollars, in the form of USDC, via MoneyGram and another user will receive it “in near-real-time”.
The partners believe this will facilitate and accelerate the collection of funds, and improve the efficiency of this process while reducing risk. Users won’t be required to own a bank account or credit card. The funds will be held in a digital wallet with the capacity to load or cash them out.
Alex Holmes, MoneyGram Chairman, and CEO, said the following about the company cooperation with the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) and how they attempt to increase people’s access to financial services:
At MoneyGram, we’re on a mission to deliver innovative financial solutions that connect the world’s communities, and the initial launch of this service is another important milestone on our journey. It’s especially exciting to launch this service ahead of schedule due to the strong collaboration of our technology teams, and we look forward to further collaboration with SDF as we work on uncovering new ways to utilize blockchain to further streamline cross-border payments.
Stellar Expands Its Ecosystem
The Stellar network will be able to benefit from this new service. Users connected to this blockchain via the LOBSTR and Vibrant wallets can access the service at the selected retail locations. Other wallets will be added in the future.
The SDF expects the partnership to benefit the businesses operating on this blockchain and add more “functionality” to its integration with MoneyGram. The payment company is working with other blockchain-based payment providers to integrate their services into other wallets, such as Airtm.
CEO and Executive Director at the SDF, Denelle Dixon, said:
Today, almost 2 billion people rely on cash for their livelihood, with no options to access the digital economy. At the same time, a persistent pain point for crypto-native users is off-ramping cryptocurrency quickly and reliably. The groundbreaking nature of this service is how inclusively it solves problems for a range of users with varying needs around the world.
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At the time of writing, XLM’s price trades at $0.14 with a 2% loss in the last 24 hours.
