MoneyGram has launched MGUSD, a stablecoin to power its global network. [Rendering: MoneyGram]
Dallas-based MoneyGram has launched its own U.S. dollar stablecoin, MGUSD, as the foundation of a growing suite of financial services throughout its global network. The company said that as it builds its payments infrastructure on blockchain, MGUSD will serve as “the connective tissue” to power services for families sending money across borders and for billions of people underserved by traditional finance.
“The stablecoin market has largely focused on the asset itself. MoneyGram is taking a fundamentally different approach,” Anthony Soohoo, Chairman and CEO, MoneyGram, said in a statement.
“Starting with our distribution platform,” Soohoo added, “we’re using stablecoin as a foundation to build future applications on our global network. MGUSD is the stablecoin we built for our customers, for the families sending money home and for the billions of people around the world with limited financial access.”
A number of partnerships make MGUSD possible, the company said. Bridge (a Stripe company) is the regulated, GENIUS Act-compliant issuer. M0’s smart contract infrastructure mints and burns MGUSD tokens. Stellar blockchain is used for the tokens. Fireblocks provides secure wallets where MoneyGram holds MGUSD, which are then used to send to individual customer wallets embedded in the MoneyGram app.
Improving access to financial services
MGUSD will be integrated directly into the MoneyGram app in a self-custodial wallet to give customers a stable, dollar-denominated balance. MGUSD launched June 2 in the U.S. market, with plans to scale globally.
The company said that MGUSD enables MoneyGram to offer stable value, lower costs, instant access, and reliable, easy-to-use financial tools, engineered not for crypto natives, but for the billions of people who move money across borders every day or who don’t have access to local financial services.
In many markets, consumers face inflation, currency instability, or limited access to reliable financial services. MGUSD gives those customers a stable, dollar-denominated balance they can hold and access at any time, as well as move globally and convert into local currency whenever and wherever they need it, the company said.
With more than 70% of transactions now digital, MoneyGram serves over 60 million active customers through one of the world’s largest global payments networks, reaching nearly 500,000 retail locations.
As an omnichannel payments network, MoneyGram said it connects digital and physical financial access, assisting consumers from cash counter to mobile wallet. The company combines decades of compliance and regulatory expertise, operational scale, and a technology infrastructure that unifies the many ways money moves, from cash to digital, from local to global, into one seamless framework.
MGUSD is designed to take the platform to another level, the company said.
Built for ‘the future of money movement’
MGUSD is the next step in MoneyGram’s partnership with the Stellar Development Foundation, the company said. The two organizations have already brought stablecoin-powered money movement to market through a noncustodial digital wallet, and MGUSD is “the natural evolution of that work,” extending into issuance, balance infrastructure, and widespread usefulness.
“Stellar was built for real-world utility at institutional scale. Our five-year partnership with MoneyGram is proof that stablecoins have moved well beyond pilots,” said Denelle Dixon, CEO and Executive Director, Stellar Development Foundation. “Together, we’ve expanded financial access to millions of families and communities who need it most. MGUSD is the next milestone that demonstrates what purpose-built blockchain can deliver when paired with a trusted payments network.”
MoneyGram is developing an open, interoperable global payments network created for “the future of money movement.” The company said that MGUSD is designed for the families sending money home across borders, the households managing finances in markets with currency instability, and the people who need better financial tools.
“Over the past year, we rebuilt the core of MoneyGram so that a digital dollar could move through it as naturally as cash moves through our agent network. That meant re-architecting issuance, orchestration and settlement,” said Luke Tuttle, chief product and technology officer atMoneyGram. “MGUSD enables MoneyGram’s monetary layer to run on stablecoin rails by design. Everything our customers experience, such as faster transfers and the ability to hold digital U.S. dollars globally is the surface of that work.”
“Everything else is invisible by design,” Tuttle added.
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