Moneygram is shifting the block chain from a pilot project to a payment infrastructure. In an interview with CoinDesk, the CEO of the company, Anthony Soohoo, stated that the focus of the company was not on using the block chain as a new point of sale for users, but rather on transforming the back of cross-border remittances to make transfers faster, cheaper and more transparent.
For remittance users, the most important concern is usually the speed and cost of arrival. Soohoo states that traditional cross-border payments often go through multiple intermediaries and are influenced by bank hours, with settlements likely to last for several days. Block chain settlements can achieve round-the-clock processing, reduce back-office operating costs and hopefully translate some of the savings into lower prices.
Still working with Stellar. Square
Moneygram has built most block chain operations over the last few years on the Stellar network. Soohoo states that Stellar remains the company ' s core partner, but that the company is also expanding its layout and is already working as a certifier in the Solana and Tempo networks.
He stressed that Moneygram was currently focusing not on encrypted asset speculation, but on replacing traditional financial corridors with new settlement networks. For such cross-border payment companies, real-time settlement and lower operational friction are more important than moving the block chain directly to consumers.
MGUSD Aim at its own payment ecology
Moneygram recently launched a stabilization currency MGUD. Soohoo states that this product is not primarily oriented towards institutional or encrypted traders, but rather gives priority to the company ' s own payment system.
He argued that if funds flowed within the Moneygram system, companies could better control their costs by using their own stable currency and would facilitate the subsequent development of more products, including wallet functions, incentive schemes and other financial services. In this line of thinking, currency stabilization is part of its vertically integrated payment infrastructure.
Users don't necessarily need to know the bottom-up technology.
According to Soohoo, consumers do not need to understand bottom-up technologies, but simply feel services are faster, more stable and cheaper. He compares the block chain to the processor in the smartphone, and the user does not necessarily know the specific model, but can directly feel changes in the performance of the equipment.
He also indicated that, after joining Moneygram for about 18 months, the judgement on block chains and digital currencies was more positive than before. He also mentioned, however, that a number of financial institutions still focused on declaring block chain plans rather than first addressing the actual problems of their clients.
Moneygram currently has about 60 million active users. Soohoo said that over the next three to five years, companies would want to become not only a money transfer service provider, but also a major financial service entry point for a larger number of users, especially those under-covered by service banks, and that block chains would be one of the bottom-up technologies to support that goal.