Western Union may soon acquire MoneyGram

According to Monday’s report by Bloomberg global remittance giant Western Union has offered to buy its competitor MoneyGram.

Although there has been no final decision made in this regard, if the acquisition does go through, it would bring United States’ two largest money wiring service companies together.

Notable takeover offers of 2020

So far, 2020 has seen some of the industry’s biggest and most significant takeovers. In April, personal finance company SoFi bought a Galileo payment processing firm for $1.2 billion, suggesting that the digital banking industry is full of promises despite challenging economic times.

Last month, Facebook made a bumper offer worth $400 million to Giphy, a gif animation company. Despite the deal costing a bomb, Facebook was insistent on acquiring the animated content creation service, which is gaining quite a traction among today’s youth.

Western Union makes an offer to MoneyGram

On Monday, Bloomberg cited a source who is conversant with the entire process and reported that the acquisition offer has yet to be materialized. And even though both companies refused to offer an update at the time, MoneyGram stock price witnessed a sharp surge in demand soon after the announcement bringing its total market value to $164 million.

Western Union stock price too rose sharply and closed at $20.71, bringing its market evaluation rate to a whopping $8.5 billion.

In case the deal goes through as indicated, Western Union would acquire MoneyGram and takeover its existing business relation with Ripple, which already holds a 9.95 percent stake in the latter.

Affiliation with Ripple

Last year, MoneyGram CEO, Alex Holmes, expressed his optimism on the firm’s two-year partnership with Ripple. The collaboration was potentially set to transform MoneyGram’s cross-border remittance process and streamline all foreign exchange transfers using digital currencies. In return, it decided to receive payments in the form of XRP as a means to help Ripple boost its adoption rate and market presence.

Meanwhile, in 2015, Western Union also explored Ripple Labs’ technology to boost real-time settlements in any currency and reduce the costs related to liquidity and compliance.