MoneyGram International, Inc. MGI recently reported robust cross-border transaction growth in its direct-to-consumer digital business, MoneyGram Online (MGO), for the month of December 2020.
Last month, the company registered cross-border transaction growth of 142% year over year. Strong customer demand for the MoneyGram app, which can be attributed to its enhanced digital capabilities, has been providing a boost to its digital platform. Notably, the upside was even higher than 136% year-over-year cross border transaction growth reported for November 2020 in its MGO business.
Apart from its cross-border business gain in December, the company also witnessed highest number of transactions in a particular month. Making use of Visa Inc (NYSE:V).’s V real-time push payments platform — Visa Direct, MoneyGram’s real-time transfers soared more than 500% last month compared to 2019. Each of the countries utilizing MGO capabilities reported record number of transactions in the last month.
December 2020 marked the 12th consecutive month of triple-digit cross-border transaction growth in its MGO business. Further, MoneyGram’s survey of customers had paved the way for the company to remain optimistic about customers sending higher remittances amid the 2020 holiday season. The same survey also hinted at customers eagerness to send more money, with addressing family’s food expenses taking the top spot followed by housing and healthcare expenses. The company’s expectation has finally started bearing fruits as evident from strong results reported for the company’s MGO business in December.
Shares of MoneyGram have soared 185.4% in a year against the industry’s decline of 20.5%. Notably, the company carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
The COVID-19 pandemic had triggered severe lockdowns and social distancing measures in a bid to curb the virus spread. The pandemic, in fact, provided a boost to growing adoption of digital transactions and MoneyGram was able to capitalize on the same, courtesy of its strong digital platform.
Moreover, the company started pursuing a digital transformation strategy following constant pressure on its revenues since 2017. It has made several investments to enhance its digital suite. It has been working closely with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) Web Services (AWS), which is leading the cloud-based applications space, for upgrading MoneyGram’s transaction processing engine. As its data and analytics engine, the company has been utilizing Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Cloud for effectively catering to the diverse needs of consumers.
Some other companies, which are active in the digital money remittance space and have been undertaking technological investments to upgrade their services, include The Western Union Company (NYSE:WU) WU and PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL). PYPL.
Coming back, MoneyGram has been entering into numerous partnerships, which reflects its efforts to serve various markets more efficiently and strengthen global foothold. Enhanced digital capabilities have made MoneyGram the preferred choice for sending money transfers globally.
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