00:00I got to ask you first about the Clarity Act.
00:01This is a little bit of a surprise.
00:03I mean, it seemed like a lot of people were saying that this thing actually had enough support to actually
00:07make it through some of these procedural votes and hopefully make it to the president's desk.
00:11It got tripped up here.
00:12Were you surprised?
00:14I was.
00:15I thought it was building up some momentum.
00:16But, you know, for us, it's going to be business as usual and we'll focus on what we can control.
00:21Do you think that the Clarity Act or some form of it could actually see the light of day anytime
00:26soon?
00:28It's too early to tell.
00:29I think, you know, from our standpoint, there were a lot of good things about the Clarity Act.
00:33But, you know, I think for now it's just taking a step back and reassessing what the environment is going
00:39to look like.
00:39Well, I mean, there are a lot of people in the digital asset space and the fintech space who are
00:43kind of looking at the Clarity Act, the Genius Act, hoping for, if not guardrails, maybe a little more clarity,
00:49pun intended, for what the rules of the road are as they start rolling out a lot of these products.
00:54Some are just rolling them out.
00:56And I guess, you know, fine, that's what you do.
00:58Do you worry at all that you could introduce something today that could be up against a legislative or regulatory
01:04constraint tomorrow?
01:05No, you know, as a company that's been around for 80 plus years, I think one of the things we
01:10do do well is we navigate the regulations and make sure we follow the laws of the land.
01:15So I think when we think about, you know, how we think about crypto, specifically around stablecoin, not having this
01:22clarity might limit some of the things we might want to do on a consumer side as it relates to,
01:30let's just say, you know, rewards.
01:33But I would say when you think about all the benefits of stablecoin and crypto, you know, I think that
01:39those are pretty clear.
01:40And especially as we think about our back office and how stablecoin can actually help us run our back office,
01:46well, I think the Genius Act helped a lot there as well.
01:49Well, talk a little bit about the new product, because, I mean, this kind of sits squarely at this question
01:53here.
01:53I mean, you're introducing something that for right now obviously has no, is not illegal, but there is obviously this
02:00question as to whether Congress may come back and take a look at some of these products and decide, if
02:05not, that they should be banned, that maybe they should be regulated in a different way.
02:08Well, we always welcome regulation, actually, because what it does is it does drive clarity, no pun intended, like you
02:15said.
02:15The product we just launched, it actually has launched in Colombia.
02:20And so we have always worked with, you know, the central banks in all the countries that we operate in.
02:26And a key thing about this card that we're launching is it allows us to first build a deeper relationship
02:31for their consumer.
02:32But when you think about the customer, the big benefit for them is that they, we think that we've created
02:37the first stable-backed card that's the easiest to use.
02:41And the reason is consumers can actually access their funds on the moment they receive it in Colombia.
02:46And we're going to open it up in other Latin markets, obviously working with the central governments there.
02:50Well, give me a sense, though, as how does that work?
02:52I mean, let's say the person sending the money, wanting to transact this year in the U.S., and they
02:57want to send it to that person in Colombia who has your card.
02:59How does that work?
03:00So what ends up happening is they can send it from a MoneyGram app or they can go to one
03:04of our MoneyGram centers with an agent.
03:06Funds get sent, let's say in this case, to Colombia.
03:09Consumer receives it.
03:10What they can do is they can actually hold those funds in a stable coin.
03:15And as soon as they receive the funds, they just tap two taps in their app, and they can right
03:21away get issued a card that they can spend anywhere where Visa is accepted around the globe.
03:26Is the idea that this product maybe sort of takes over what kind of the traditional remittance process was?
03:32No, I think it extends the relationship because if we take a step back, MoneyGram's relationship with our consumer was
03:40we were good at sending and receiving.
03:42What we did not have is the ability for consumers to actually store value in what they were receiving as
03:48well as spending it.
03:49And the reason that's important is because many times when the consumer is receiving their funds, they're actually either not
03:55ready to spend or they want to hold it in a stable currency.
03:58And this allows them to do that in their currency.
04:01And then they can hold it in a fluctuating FX environment, for instance.
04:05They can hold it in the U.S. in a stable dollar balance when they're ready to spend.
04:09Then they can spend it and it gets converted to their local fiat.
04:13I mean, I understand the beauty of this, but also the beauty of this when I listen to it, I
04:18think, why do we need MoneyGram?
04:20Or why do we need a middle person in all of this?
04:23Do we?
04:24I would say very much yes.
04:27The reason is what we sell is not just to send and receive.
04:31We actually sell the promise of trust.
04:34And you always actually need the coordination between the two parties where someone needs to coordinate the sender and the
04:40receiver.
04:41Certainly there's going to be, you know, two kids or two college kids can write an app that say you
04:46send an app from one place to the other.
04:47But there is regulation to make sure that those sends are going in safely.
04:51And also, you know, there's a lot around KYC and AML that we have built up a huge infrastructure to
04:57support.
04:58So give me a sense here.
05:00I mean, what kind of adoption have you seen so far with the product?
05:04And as you start to rule this out, prepare to rule this out to other nations, I mean, how fast
05:08do you think this scales up?
05:10Well, it's really new.
05:12We just actually announced it early last week.
05:15And so, you know, it's too early to tell in terms of adoption.
05:18But we're excited about the experience because we think that for these consumers, it's going to be the first time
05:24we can actually give them access to the digital economy.
05:27And very much if they wanted, this was something that I think our customers were really craving.
05:32And we're allowing them to do this all within the same transaction.
05:36The beauty of all this is that we have 16 million active customers that use MoneyGram today on an annual
05:41basis.
05:42And we're giving them access to the digital economy of something they might not have access to in the past.
05:47All right.
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