Western Union is testing Ripple to prepare crypto future

5 years ago - Published in Fintech Land

Payments giant Western Union just announced that they are preparing for crypto to see mass adoption.

Molly Shea, the General Manager of Asia Pacific at Western Union, explained in the Analyse Asia podcast that the financial services company – which reported revenue of $1.4bn in Q4 2018 – was preparing itself for a future where digital assets begin to “take off”.

“When you think about cryptocurrencies, if those start to take off, we need to be ready,” Shea said. “We need to be ready form a technology perspective; regulation’s got to be there, but you constantly have to be looking for those trends where the customers are looking…and make sure that you’re ready to meet those needs and expectations. “

She continued and explained that “So we’ve got to be able to stay ahead of that and foresee what their expectations are going to be and drive the remittance market to that, as their needs have and as wallets have been evolving. We have to be there.”

She also made sure to highlight the fact that mass adoption is on its way and we all need to be ready for it especially from a tech perspective. More than that, regulation will have to be present.

Shea confirmed that Western Union continues to test Ripple’s solutions for cross-border payments. They’ve been looking at xRapid which uses XRP, as you know by now.

Western Union revealed an update on its tests with xRapid back in June 2018 and back then they were saying that they were not yet convinced that Ripple’s tech could lead to cost savings.

Ripple was in the spotlight just recently after they reportedly fired Cory Johnson and eliminated his position.

Tom Channick, Ripple’s spokesman, told CoinDesk that Ripple has eliminated Johnson’s position altogether and considers his time with the company a massive success.

“Cory’s last year at Ripple was a success in representing the company to investors, press, and regulators. Cory helped Ripple with strategy internally and overall industry education. But due to changes in market conditions, we’ve chosen to eliminate the role of Chief Market Strategist,” he said.

Established in 1851, 168 years ago, Western Union provides remittance services, allowing customers to send funds across borders and in multiple currencies. The company sent more than $300bn in 2018; its network has more than 550,000 retail locations; more than all the Starbucks and McDonald’s outlets in the world, Shea claims.