MoneyGram Goes Live with Stablecoin-Backed Visa Card in Colombia
MoneyGram has launched its virtual Visa card in Colombia, allowing users to spend their stablecoin-backed dollar balance held in the MoneyGram app. The card is available in one of the countries where MoneyGram serves more than 60 million active customers and is expected to expand to other markets in the coming months.
The card, which was promised by MoneyGram a year ago, allows users to hold dollars in their app balance and spend them at Visa merchants without converting to pesos. This change enables recipients who previously collected cash and left to now hold dollars in the app and use them for online or in-person purchases globally with linked Visa or Mastercard debit cards.
The card is issued through Rain, a company that supplies the card issuing service, and connects the balance to Visa's network using Stellar. MoneyGram has not disclosed which stablecoin backs the balance, but a footnote from last September mentioned USDC as the default stablecoin for holding USD balances.