Western Union looking to purchase MoneyGram

Two of the biggest money transfer platforms may soon abandon their rivalry, as early reports show that Western Union is looking to purchase MoneyGram, a similar transfer service, albeit with a significantly lesser global clout.

The merger would come during a time where both companies suffer losses due to their heavy brick-and-mortar presence and face stiff competition from digital payments processors.

A merger of two giants expedited by digitalization?

For MoneyGram, this is neither the company’s first partnership nor attempted sale. Ripple struck a two-year $50 million-worth deal with the company where the capital would come in exchange for MoneyGram committing to the use of XRP and other blockchain services for cross-border payments and transactions, something that could rightly be called Ripple’s bottom line.

Prior to that, MoneyGram came close to being purchased by Chinese Ant Financial in 2017, with the deal ultimately falling through due to issues with the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment. Now, the bidders have moved back home, as shown by Western Union’s latest acquisition attempt.

According to our sources, the two firms are still in negotiations and no deal has been made final yet, which means no purchase figure has been revealed. However, given MoneyGram’s expansion into the digital sphere and its fairly strong showing on the stock market so far this year, it’s safe to assume that Western Union’s bid might exceed that of the would-be Chinese buyers.