Ripple’s Partner MoneyGram Expands in India, Will It Affect XRP Price?

Multinational payment remittance platform MoneyGram has announced a partnership with the EbixCash network, to expand Moneygram’s presence in India. The partnership was announced in an official MoneyGram news release published on Monday, Jan. 13.

The press release states that EbixCash is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ebix, Inc. The latter is an international supplier of application software products, based in Atlanta, Georgia. Starting immediately, EbixCash will be exclusively responsible for MoneyGram’s spread into the Indian market.

Will MoneyGram’s Presence in India Affect XRP?

In 2019, MoneyGram secured a strategic partnership with Ripple, using on-demand liquidity (ODL) for cross-border transactions. ODL uses XRP as the bridge between two fiats, to facilitate these transactions, ensuring faster speed. The partnership proved advantageous for both parties as MoneyGram could settle transactions faster and XRP adoption increased.

The move into India just might be the right way for the company to ensure that XRP adoption keeps on going. MoneyGram Chief Revenue Officer highlights the advantage of the Indian market, in relation to Ebixcash, in the release.

“India remains the world’s top recipient of remittances, and we’re excited to better serve this critical market through our partnership with EbixCash, a leading brand with an approximate 80% share of locations in the country.”

Also, the press release specifies that MoneyGram will have access to more consumers in India, through EbixCash. Ebix already controls 320,000 distribution outlets which include 4,000 cities and over 75,000 villages. This means that MoneyGram’s access will hit deep into rural areas.

The MoneyGram expansion into India, whether or not it happens through EbixCash, might mean that the company will use ODL for transactions in and out of India. While this is speculation and nothing more, the large Indian market will be a considerable boost for XRP adoption.

Ripple’s List of Partners Keeps Growing

Even though MoneyGram CEO Alex Holmes believes Ripple’s ODL is in its early days, its already quite the game-changer. Ripple already has an interesting list of partners either currently using or planning to use ODL, with the company looking to consistently grow this list.

Apart from MoneyGram, the list includes TransferGo, Bittrex, Interbank, BTC Markets, SendFriend, Mercury FX, Coins.ph, goLance, SBI Virtual Currencies, BitStamp, Catalyst, Euro Exim Bank, TransPayGo, Remessa, FTCS, Bitso, JNFX, Viamericas, Nium, Cuallix, IDT, FlashFX, and Bitrue.

Is Wells Fargo Next?

For a while now, Wells Fargo customers have been quite disappointed with the bank’s service. From being the first bank to offer online services back in the 90s, it has fallen from grace to grass. There are repeated complaints from the public about how archaic the system is and several software issues. Furthermore, there was a blackout of the bank’s online systems which lasted for hours. All of these have sparked repeated calls for an upgrade.

Blockchain seems like the easiest answer to all of the bank’s problems and there are already rumors that the bank could partner with Ripple. Using blockchain will allow transparency and unmatched security with all of their offerings.

And this assumption is not taken from the air. We have already reported that being inspired by the acquisition of Plaid by Visa Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has started to talk about more consolidation in the fintech industry in 2020. Maybe he is already considering something particular.

However, Wells Fargo is anti-crypto, a big setback to what could be an amazing partnership opportunity for the bank.

On the other hand, Ripple is having some legal trouble. Cooperative Entertainment, a firm based in North Carolina, has sued the company for violating a patent. Ripple has filed for a dismissal of the case, saying that the entertainment company cannot substantiate its accusations.