MoneyGram Releases Statement Distancing Itself From Ripple in Wake of SEC Probe

The news of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) coming after Ripple continues to have negative consequences for the blockchain outfit MoneyGram distances itself from the company.

MoneyGram Clears the Air on Ripple Partnership

International remittance outfit MoneyGram published a press release on Wednesday (Dec. 23, 2020) addressing the nature of its collaboration with Ripple in the wake of the news of the SEC instituting a lawsuit against the blockchain firm. According to the press statement, MoneyGram does not deploy Ripple’s counterparty platform for international payments.

An excerpt from the press release reads:

“MoneyGram has had a commercial agreement with Ripple since June 2019; this agreement represents the use of Ripple’s foreign exchange (FX) blockchain trading platform (ODL) for the purchase or sale of four currencies. MoneyGram has continued to utilize its other traditional FX trading counterparties throughout the term of the agreement with Ripple, and is not dependent on the Ripple platform to accomplish its FX trading needs.”

The clarification from MoneyGram might come as surprise given the fact that Ripple routinely touted the collaboration as a testament to the growing adoption of its services in the mainstream financial arena. Back in 2018, some segments of the crypto community argued that Ripple’s impending partnership with MoneyGram was only a pilot test and not an actual deployment of RippleNet technology for use by the payments giant.

Hello, This is a pilot program being tested on internal MoneyGram International processes and is not intended for consumer use.

— MoneyGram International (@MoneyGram) January 11, 2018

As previously reported by BTCManager, Ripple partnered with MoneyGram for cross-border payments back in June 2019. Indeed, the blockchain firm also completed another equity investment in MoneyGram in November 2019. However, a year later, Ripple announced the sale of part of its stake in the payment processor.

According to the press release, MoneyGram reminded the general public that it does not utilize the Ripple ODL and that it is not a part of the SEC action.

XRP Woes Continue

Negative blowback from the SEC enforcement against Ripple continues to have a negative impact on the XRP price action. XRP has fallen below the $0.30 mark and is now trading at 26 cents as of press time. The fourth-ranked crypto by market capitalization has also followed up its 30 percent decline on Dec. 23 with a further 16 percent downward slide in the last 24-hour trading period.

Many crypto exchanges have already delisted XRP or are in the process of suspending XRP trading with Coinbase announcing that it was considering its options on the matter. Bitwise Asset Management firm has also liquidated its XRP position in the wake of the SEC action.