MoneyGram Launches A New Pilot In The U.S. Using Stellar Ecosystem
Global payment firm MoneyGram International continues its partnership with the Stellar ecosystem. A new stage for the partnership was announced in form of deployment of a live cash-in and cash-out pilot initiative in the United States.
MoneyGram ended its relationship with Ripple due to the U.S. SEC lawsuit against its executives, and since established a collaboration with the Stellar Development Foundation. In less than two months, the due has taken important steps to improve the company’s payment settlement capabilities.
MoneyGram said that their latest pilot initiative has allowed them to deploy “one of the quickest, most seamless integrations yet”. As of now, participants in the U.S. can make dollar deposits into their wallets at certain MoneyGram establishments and leverage Stellar-based USDC Coin (USDC) to send instant payments abroad.
In addition, participants will be able to exchange Stellar USDC for “any cash currency supported” on MoneyGram.
“With Stellar, MoneyGram enables consumers to seamlessly convert USDC to cash, or cash to USDC – all without requiring a bank account. Since USDC is the world’s fastest growing digital dollar currency, the utility and liquidity of this versatile digital asset will only grow as more wallets and companies join the Stellar ecosystem.”
The program has made MoneyGram’s payment settlement “instantaneous”, for the first time since its inception. In that way, the company believes that consumers will be able to benefit from an increase in payment efficiency, less risk, and a speed-up fund collection.
MoneyGram sees cash money as part of the future as a tool for the unbanked. In that sense, they attempt to create alternatives to cash and expand the access to financial opportunities to everyone.
MoneyGram used Stellar’s resources and documentation for their developer kits and its “well-designed set” of ecosystem protocols (SEPs) with various APIs to create their pilot solution.
Jake Urban, Senior Software Engineer at the Stellar Development Foundation made a step-by-step demonstration on how users can exchange and send money via the MoneyGram solution, as seen in the video below. The company said:
“By integrating with Stellar, MoneyGram is offering its millions of users a local fiat entry into blockchain, providing those in emerging markets easier access to digital assets than ever before. This pilot is just the first of many steps to create greater access to the world’s financial system for everyone, regardless of where they are.”
At the time of writing, XLM trades at $0.33 with a 6.45% loss in the 24-hour chart.
