Ripple Labs officially ends partnership with MoneyGram

Ripple has announced that it has severed ties with money transfer service provider MoneyGram

Yesterday, Ripple Labs confirmed that its partnership with MoneyGram had come to an end. The blockchain firm behind the XRP token released a statement saying the two had mutually agreed to bring the collaboration to a halt.

“Together, Ripple and MoneyGram have made the decision to end our current partnership agreement,” the statement read.

Forged in June 2019, the partnership initially became ‘shaky’ when MoneyGram distanced itself from Ripple in light of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) suit against the latter. The commission alleged that XRP was an unregistered security and that Ripple had violated the investment law.

Before taking a step back from the alliance and suspending XRP use on its platform last month, MoneyGram had worked together with Ripple for nearly two years. The two joined forces on a project in the cross-border payments space in which MoneyGram agreed to use the XRP token for international payment settlements.

Ripple provided financial support in its native token and consequently took an equity position in MoneyGram. However, according to the public filings, MoneyGram didn’t hold the provided tokens; instead, it sold them. The money transfer company is reported to have earned a total of about $61.5 million in market development fees from the blockchain firm for the while the collaboration lasted.

“We are proud of the work we were able to accomplish in a short amount of time, as well as the impact we were able to achieve in bringing this first-of-its-kind product to market. Together, we processed billions of dollars through RippleNet and On-Demand Liquidity (ODL).”

Ripple noted that there was still room to work together in the future despite winding down the partnership.

“We are both committed to revisiting our relationship in the future. We still believe in the promise of digital assets and blockchain technology to change the status quo in global payments for the benefit of billions of consumers around the world.”

Ripple’s chief executive Brad Garlinghouse shared the partnership’s achievements on Twitter, saying, “While the lack of a crypto reg framework has needlessly muddied the waters for US businesses & consumers, there’s no denying what Ripple and MGI have achieved together. Billions of dollars have been sent and settled across borders through ODL w/ XRP.”

Ripple has fervently denied the SEC allegations, and its executives have moved to have the charges they are facing dismissed.