By Solomon Odunayo
As a recent report has it, Ripple’s strategic partner MoneyGram, the money transfer giant, experienced a huge negative hit in its walk-in business in the Q1 of 2020, as digital transaction takes the whole benefit, experienced over 57% increase amid lockdown across the world initiated by coronavirus pandemic.
According to the money transfer company, the performance was driven by a high client retention rate, market growth, and strong demand for the company’s app.
The Chairman and CEO of MoneyGram, Alex Holmes noted that the United States walk-in business and the rest of the world began to experience slowdowns, few days after the stay at home became effective across the world.
Holmes furthered that the payment company was reaching year-to-year transaction declines of relatively 40% in the middle of the crisis until now.
He said, “With several countries reporting declines of as much as a hundred percent as government-issued stay-at-home orders inhibited business in those markets.”
MoneyGram Digital Transaction Experienced Great Increase
According to the CEO, Alex Holmes, the firm’s digital business slowed down in terms of daily growth. He said the online aspect of the payment company made a 60% transaction growth rate for the first quarter of 2020 and started to increase further towards the end of March and April 2020.
According to Holmes, as of 27th April, MoneyGram online transaction recorded an 88% growth rate, and some nations are also experiencing “growth rates exceeding 1,000 percent with many key markets delivering growth of over 200 percent.”
He added that digital transaction comprised 18% of all money transfers made towards the end of Q1. Conclusively, MoneyGram recorded $290.9 million in revenues.
Arab Bank to Add Ripple’s XRP Next Month
The Switzerland-based Arab Bank announced a strategic investment in Series A of Taurus Group. Over the past years, the bank has been leading the blockchain and digital asset offering in Switzerland.
The report says that the bank launched a full suite of digital asset services, providing advisory, custody and brokerage services for Bitcoin and Ethereum last September. So it plans to add XRP to its offering next month.