Dive Brief:

• Continuing a cryptocurrency tilt, MoneyGram International this week introduced a new service that lets customers buy, sell and hold cryptocurrency on its mobile app, the money transfer company announced.
• Through its partnership with Coinme, a cryptocurrency exchange and crypto-as-a-service provider, the company is allowing users to trade Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin within the mobile app, according to a press release from the company Tuesday.
• MoneyGram said it is planning to add more cryptocurrencies as it enters other markets in 2023, international regulations permitting, per the press release.

Dive Insight:

MoneyGram, which counts about 150 million customers worldwide, said the rollout of its cryptocurrency feature allows the company to expand on the financial services it’s offering those clients.

"Cryptocurrencies are additive to everything we're doing at MoneyGram,” Alex Holmes, MoneyGram chairman and CEO, said in a statement. “From dollars to euros to yen and so on, MoneyGram enables instant access to over 120 currencies around the globe, and we see crypto and digital currencies as another input and output option.”

“As a next step in the evolution of MoneyGram, we're thrilled to provide our customers with access to a trusted and easy-to-use platform to securely buy, sell and hold select cryptocurrencies," he added.

Holmes said in September that the company’s tilt toward crypto is part of an effort to appeal to young, digital-first customers. Holmes has led the company for more than a decade, according to his LinkedIn profile, but he’s taking direction this year from a new owner. In February, the private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners agreed to acquire the company in a $1.8 billion deal.

MoneyGram's introduction of a cryptocurrency service is part of the company's experimentation with digital assets. The company has previously partnered with Stellar, Coinme and G-Coin to let customers buy and store cryptocurrency and exchange it for fiat currency. MoneyGram teamed up with Wyre and Stellar in July to allow users in multiple countries to trade between fiat currencies and digital assets. It also has a tie to Circle for cross-border settlement of crypto in the stablecoin USD Coin.

Though MoneyGram is betting on consumers' interest in cryptocurrencies, research suggests that the industry is on the decline. A Bank of America analysis of anonymized customer data found that the share of customers interacting with cryptocurrency platforms dropped by more than half from about 1 million people to under 500,000 between November 2021 to May 2022.

Meanwhile, data from Coin Market Cap show that the total cryptocurrency market cap has dropped from its peak of more than $2.8 trillion on Nov. 11, 2021, down to about $1.01 trillion on Oct. 31.

MoneyGram has concentrated on its cryptocurrency ambitions, but it’s also faced scrutiny from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In April, the CFPB and New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a civil suit against MoneyGram International, alleging multiple consumer financial protection law violations. The lawsuit also noted that many of MoneyGram’s U.S. customers are immigrants and refugees sending money to their home countries, and alleged the company is failing to deliver funds to recipients abroad on time.