MoneyGram Teams with Stellar to Scale Stablecoin Payments Across Latin America, announcing a multi‑year extension of its partnership with the Stellar Development Foundation to broaden the MoneyGram app’s stablecoin balance from Colombia into El Salvador and other Latin American markets.
Stablecoins Take a Real‑World Turn
In a press briefing at Stellar House in Mexico City, MoneyGram and the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) confirmed that the collaboration, which began in 2021, will now focus on delivering a fiat‑to‑stablecoin on/off‑ramp that works at the scale of MoneyGram’s 500,000 retail locations. The move follows the successful rollout of a USDC‑backed balance in the MoneyGram app for Colombian users, where the feature achieved rapid adoption and enabled instant receipt, holding, and cash‑out of digital dollars.
Why the Extension Matters
The partnership bridges two distinct strengths: Stellar’s low‑cost, high‑throughput blockchain infrastructure and MoneyGram’s global reach across more than 200 countries. By embedding a stablecoin balance directly into a legacy cash‑centric platform, the joint solution sidesteps the “wallet‑only” limitation that has hampered many blockchain initiatives. Enterprises can now integrate stablecoin settlements into existing ERP and CRM stacks without requiring a separate crypto‑exchange layer.
Technical Overview
The service runs on the Stellar network, leveraging its built‑in multi‑asset support and fast consensus (≈2‑5 seconds per ledger). Crossmint and Circle supply the USDC liquidity, while MoneyGram’s Ramps API exposes the on/off‑ramp to third‑party developers. End‑users see a familiar MoneyGram interface, but their balances are tokenized on Stellar, allowing near‑instant cross‑border transfers at a fraction of the cost of traditional correspondent banking.
Industry Impact
According to Gartner, 68 % of financial services firms plan to incorporate blockchain or distributed ledger technology by 2027. MoneyGram’s approach demonstrates a viable path for large, cash‑heavy institutions to meet that target without overhauling their legacy infrastructure. Competitors such as Western Union have experimented with crypto pilots, yet none have embedded a stablecoin balance into a consumer‑facing mobile app at this scale.
Enterprise Marketing Implications
For B2B marketers, the integration opens new data streams: transaction velocity, geographic spend patterns, and digital‑currency usage metrics. These insights can feed into personalized campaigns run through platforms like Salesforce or Adobe Experience Cloud, enabling more precise cross‑sell of financial products. Moreover, the lower transaction fees improve ROI on promotional rebates tied to remittance volumes.
Quotes from Leadership
“Everyone talks about financial inclusion. MoneyGram is delivering it,” said Anthony Soohoo, Chairman and CEO of MoneyCoin. “We are building an open payments network that moves seamlessly across fiat and stablecoin, enabling faster, lower‑cost transactions, starting with the people who need it most.”
Denelle Dixon, CEO of SDF, added, “Stellar was built on the belief that the global financial system should work for everyone. With SDF’s purpose‑built blockchain infrastructure and MoneyGram’s global reach, that ambition finally has the infrastructure to deliver it.”
Market Landscape
The Latin American remittance corridor remains the world’s most expensive, with average fees hovering around 7 % according to the World Bank. Mobile penetration exceeds 80 % in the region, but cash usage stays high due to limited banking infrastructure. By embedding USDC—a dollar‑pegged stablecoin—into a trusted cash‑out network, MoneyGram and Stellar address both cost and accessibility.
Globally, IDC predicts that blockchain‑enabled payments will generate $2.3 trillion in transaction value by 2028, driven largely by cross‑border use cases. Companies like Google and Amazon are already experimenting with crypto‑based loyalty programs, while Microsoft’s Azure Blockchain Service provides enterprise‑grade tooling for similar integrations. MoneyGram’s partnership illustrates how legacy fintech players can leapfrog into this emerging ecosystem without building a blockchain from scratch.
Top Insights
- MoneyGram’s stablecoin balance expands to El Salvador, marking the first large‑scale fiat‑to‑USDC on/off‑ramp in Central America.
- Leveraging Stellar’s 2‑second settlement time cuts cross‑border transfer costs by up to 80 % versus traditional correspondent banks.
- The integration supplies enterprise marketers with granular transaction data that can be fed into Salesforce or Adobe platforms for targeted campaigns.
- IDC forecasts $2.3 trillion in blockchain‑enabled payments by 2028, positioning this partnership as a early mover in a rapidly scaling market.
- By combining cash‑centric retail reach with tokenized assets, MoneyGram challenges Western Union’s crypto pilots and sets a new benchmark for fintech incumbents.
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