MoneyGram’s Chief Executive had high praises for the Ripple-powered ODL and claims they can settle billions in a matter of seconds.
The recent Ripple Swell event in Singapore saw the world’s foremost authorities on payments and technology gather to discuss today’s global payments system. Among the notable guests was MoneyGram CEO, Alex Holmes.
Holmes sat down with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse for a live discussion. The two leaders talked about the state of the industry. Holmes was also full of praises for Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) product. Formerly called xRapid, the ODL leverages the XRP currency.
In its collaboration with MoneyGram, Ripple sank more than $50 million in the company while the money transfer firm agreed to use XRP in its cross-border remittance transactions.
Holmes claims that his company has already begun sending remittances to Mexico via ODL and XRP. MoneyGram reportedly processes around 10% of all US-Mexico transactions using this system.
Holmes was full of praises for Ripple’s latest product. During his live one-on-one talk with Garlinghouse, he mentioned how he loves the fact that they’re at the “forefront of this technology.” Holmes was also amazed at how they’re able to manage billion-dollar transactions in seconds and credited the “magic” to pairing MoneyGram with the ODL.
Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity by depending on their partner exchanges to accept and receive the fiat payments coursed through banks and different finance institutions. The crypto exchange platforms would then send XRP equal to the fiat amount they’ve received. The XRP is once more converted to fiat when it arrives at the selected location.
The whole transaction process was developed to run for a few minutes, with the sent assets being in XRP form only for seconds. The system can be utilized to transfer huge amounts of money instantly.
MoneyGram’s Chairman also explained that competition in the remittance industry has become more driven over the last ten years, so operators have to transform themselves. Holmes claimed it’s what they’ve been doing and pointed out that they’re the first to experiment with the newest technologies.
He also emphasized that the remittance industry as a whole should actively look for solutions to problems like the lack of coordination between the various financial companies. He said that was the main issue when moving money globally and that there has to be more solutions to connect the various financial institutions.
Aside from using Ripple’s ODL, the money transfer company is also utilizing a cloud service to look into how it can be advantageous to their clients.
In one interview, Garlinghouse recounted that Holmes called him not long to complain that Ripple was being too careful and slow with ODL. He encouraged Garlinghouse to push ODL in other directions aside from Mexico. Now MoneyGram’s CEO shared that the two companies have plans to push ODL to four more global channels. He said he’s anticipating several positive changes in the next few months.
MoneyGram isn’t resting on its laurels though. It was recently reported that Walmart is collaborating with Ria and MoneyGram. The American retail conglomerate plans to improve the payment system that links its 4,700 stores in the country with the help of the two companies.
