Western Union Is Ready To Embrace Crypto – Uses Ripple’s Tech & xRapid For Testing

Remittance giant Western Union has been steadily watching the crypto space and global crypto adoption, and it seems to be ready to add digital assets as a payment option for its customers.

Integrating crypto and the blockchain tech

Western Union’s global money transfer president Odilon Almeida believes that integrating crypto into the company’s lineup is not a hard task at all.

“Western Union is ready today to adopt any kind of currency. We already operate with 130 currencies. If we one day feel like it’s the right strategy to introduce cryptocurrencies to our platform, technology-wise it’s just one more currency,” Almeida said.

The company is in such a position from which it can easily bridge the gap between fiat currencies and cryptos.

Another thing worth mentioning is that it has access to billions of bank accounts and more than half a million retail agent locations.

Testing Ripple’s tech since 2015

They have been testing Ripple’s cross-border payment tech since back in 2015.

CEO Hikmet Ersek said that the tests with xRapid were early and they were a bit too early and small to draw any conclusions.

Western Union already transfers fiat digitally, and they expect blockchain tech and crypto integration to be smooth.

Crypto could finally be seen as a viable mainstream financial option

This could become one of the most important brands in the financial industry to tap into crypto as a viable payment option that can become mainstream.

Their announcement highlights that there’s a new hybrid economy on its way to us which lies at the intersection of fiat and crypto.

“Cryptocurrencies have so far failed to achieve broad acceptance because they have yet to master three things: governance, compliance, and volatility,” Almedia said.

He explained that Western Union could solve these issues because it already moves money across 130 currencies and has all it takes to address the three challenges mentioned above.

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