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What in particular about the partnership (Money Gram) excites you the most? Denelle Dixon, CEO and Executive Director of SDF: I think it is the opportunity to reach those that don’t have bank accounts and those that really don’t have credit cards or wire transfers. Normally, to get in to blockchain today, you really need to be able to get your cash and convert it in to digital asset. You need to be able to leverage one of those types of things.
Either a wire transfer or credit card or bank account. This creates the real opportunity to bring the cash world in to blockchain. And folks who don’t have a bank account leverage their wallet for that purpose. Once they create the digital wallet by bringing the assets on to the network for example, they can do so much. They can create yield opportunities for themselves. And, send money to their families. They can hold their assets. They can hedge against inflation in the local community to do so.
There is just so much opportunity. The developers on the network are the ones that are creating the coolness about what wallets can do, but it is this relationship that brings the opportunity for these individuals who historically couldn’t get in to the blockchain to be able to get in. So, that is the part to me that is unique and transformational and supercool, and also it that which bridges this with this world and we talk about interoperability all the time. This is actually the true interoperable state that we want to get to.
Alex Holmes, CEO and Chairman of MoneyGram International: I think the most exciting, dynamic interesting part for me is that you really have kind of 2 worlds evolving at the same time. All the excitement over the last decade and a half with the payment space, cross border and what is going on and that was in the sense of the traditional financial market. It is covered in regulation and change and everything happening with currencies and then you sort of have this complete parallel world evolving with blockchain and digital currencies and all the excitement around that. And what I find is fascinating about both is that they really kind of have the same agenda. The traditional financial market has all been about speed, transparency and reliability in cross border payments. Blockchain and digital assets are trying to do the same thing in a very different way. But again, they rely on speed. They rely on transparency and really the interoperability between the two exists in a degree, but when you start to bridge the two the speed goes like out the door and it becomes very, very slow, which I find sort of ironic.
To me, I think there is so much dialogue about will blockchain and crypto displace the current financial market. I don’t know even if that is a question. I think they are going to run together. They are going to interoperate. I think they are going to both benefit each other in a number of ways. You have to create the interoperability. You have to start thinking about how are they working in the floor together. And, so for me taking MoneyGram and putting it in partnership with SDF and thinking about how we can make that come to life is really pretty compelling. That I think is the most interesting part of all.
