Cross border payments firm MoneyGram yesterday issued a statement in light of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) recent action against Ripple.
Earlier this week, the SEC charged Ripple—the firm behind the cryptocurrency XRP—with raising $1.3 billion in an unregistered securities offering. The SEC alleges Ripple raised these funds through unregistered XRP sales to investors all around the world—including in the US, over which the SEC holds jurisdiction. The price of XRP has dropped by over 50% this week, amidst the fallout from the SEC’s action against Ripple.
“The Company has not currently been notified or been made aware of any negative impact to its commercial agreement with Ripple but will continue to monitor for any potential impact as developments in the lawsuit evolve,” the MoneyGram team said in a statement.
MoneyGram’s commercial agreement with Ripple concerns the use of Ripple’s foreign exchange and blockchain trading platform. However, MoneyGram said it has “continued to utilize its other traditional foreign exchange trading counterparties,” and does not need the platform provided by Ripple to accomplish its foreign exchange trading needs.
“As a reminder, MoneyGram does not utilize the ODL platform or RippleNet for direct transfers of consumer funds – digital or otherwise. Furthermore, MoneyGram is not a party to the SEC action.,” it added.
MoneyGram is one of many partnerships Ripple has established in recent years. According to Ripple’s website, the company’s customers total “300+ financial institutions across 40+ countries worldwide.”
One such example is Santander, one of the world’s largest banks. The partnership between Ripple and Santander is designed to streamline international payments.
“Ripple helps us directly address the issues of speed and transparency around international payments raised by our customers and make sending money abroad better,” said Ed Metzger, one pay FX chief technology officer at Santander.
Ripple’s other customers include Standard Chartered and American Express, both giants of the traditional finance industry.
Each of Ripple’s 300+ customers will watch the SEC’s next move closely.