Two major payment transfer companies might join forces as Western Union has made an acquisition offer to MoneyGram International, according to Bloomberg’s Tuesday report.
Though the details are not public yet, the publication cited “a person familiar with the matter” for reporting the potential takeover.
It was also pointed out that no final decision has been made on the part of Moneygram and it can still walkout from the deal.
However, even the possibility of such a deal has shot the price of MoneyGram’s share up as it gained over 6 percent in the late Monday trading hours. Western Union shares also see a major surge and gained 3.5 percent before the closing bell struck the market.
Digital services are dwarfing the traditional businesses
Both Western Union and MoneyGram are major US-based remittance providers and captured a large portion of the market. However, being based out of brick and mortar stores, their businesses were hugely affected by the ongoing lockdown around the world with the COVID-19 outbreak.
Through MoneyGram is now inclining towards digital adaptation with the changing world, only 18 percent of its total revenue came from such transactions, per the company’s report last month.
Notably, the Dallas-headquartered company also has close ties with the Blockchain industry. The company received $50 million from San Fransisco-based Ripple which now owns 9.95 percent of it.
MoneyGram is also using Ripple’s blockchain-based products to transfer remittances.
This is not the first buy out deal offered to MoneyGram as one of such deals from Ant Financials in 2017 didn’t see the light due to pushback from the US national security regulators.
Meanwhile, tech giants like Facebook are also sying to jump into the remittance market with its proposed digital currency Libra .
