Jack Ma’s Ant Financial Turns To Blockchain To Outdo MoneyGram

MoneyGram remains the old-school way of sending money across borders but Jack Ma’s Alipay wants to be the new cool way of transferring money across borders. As instant becomes the new normal, Ant Financial (formerly known as Alipay) has confirmed that it will be launching a blockchain based payment system. This means sending money will be fast, efficient and reliable. MoneyGram which is faced by all three of these problems might just have to speed up its current trial run with Ripple to keep up with Ant Financial’s blockchain payment system. Ant Financial has already confirmed that it will be running their first phase trial run between Hong Kong and the Philippines. If successful, Ant Financial will have edged closer to running out MoneyGram; a company that Jack Ma had previously tried to take over.

Blockchain Remittances Expected To Go Global

The company will be collaborating with their Philippine-based payment app company Gcash. The two companies, with the help of Standard Chartered, will ensure real-time payments across Hong Kong and the Philippines. In addition to being the fastest means of payment, the platform aims to offer the most competitive transfer rates. For years, cross-border payments have been faced by challenges like time wastage, high transaction costs, and inefficiency. Ant Financial will be looking to address these issues as Jennifer Tan, CEO of Ant Financial Payment notes;

What used to be a long process of physically going to a remittance booth, queuing in line for hours and filling out forms, is now easily and securely done over the mobile phone in just a few seconds,

Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group which owns Ant Financial, was not shy to say that this service was aimed at creating something better than MoneyGram. One thing that he wants to see the service achieve is reducing the transaction cost imposed by traditional services. In his speech during the launch, he noted that although he wanted to buy MoneyGram and try to make it more efficient, the failure of the deal made it possible for him to create his own payment company, using the most advanced technology in the world. In the past, Jack Ma has been a blockchain evangelist; saying that it is the future and a solution for privacy and security in Alibaba.

The remittance service trial is expected to run for three months as the two companies look to fine-tune operations. If successful, the company will look to launch the service on a global platform.

MoneyGram is not taking the encroachment lying down. The company which has for some time been conducting trials with Ripple will look to speed up and integrate the blockchain into its operations. The MoneyGram and Ripple partnership was announced earlier on in the year but results are yet to materialize up to now. The deal would see MoneyGram use Ripple’s XRP in payment through their xRapid network. This is expected to make MoneyGram transfers faster and reduce transaction costs.

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