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***this is speculation*** In the wake of AliPay's announcement of launching a cross-border remittance service powered by blockchain technology, a closer inspection of the partnerships reveals several layers of Ripple associates. The cross-border remittance services into the Philippines will be offered by in a collaboration between GCash, AliPay, and Standard Chartered. With further details on Standard Chartered's involvement, https://www.pymnts.com/news/cross-border-commerce/2018/alipay-gcash-blockchain-cross-border-remittance-philippines/ Standard Chartered is currently a RippleNet adopter, primarily using it for cross-border payments between India and Singapore. The bank has also broadcasted it's plans on extending it's utilization of RippleNet to five other countries/pairs this year. https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/32048/standard-chartered-to-extend-use-of-ripplenet-to-more-countries Standard Chartered acting as the settlement bank by offering it's infrastructure to both AliPay and GCash for remittance services, falls into Winters statement of expanding it's capabilities to other currency pairs with the Philippine Piso (PHP), the Hong Kong Dollar (HKD), and the Chinese Yaun/renminbi (CNY) being the suspects. GCash in itself also has an abundance of service and associate overlaps with Ripple. Currently GCash and it's services such as GCASH REMIT into the Philippines is consisted of SoftBank Payments and Globe Telecom. https://www.gcash.jp/?lg=e SBI Holdings' business relationship with SoftBank has been under speculation since SBI's involvement with Ripple but Globe Telecom can reveal other intentions of GCash. GCash is not the only notable subsidiary of Globe Telecom, Mynt is another subsidiary of Globe Telecom's financial technology arm that includes Ayala Corp and Ant Financial(AliPay/Alibaba). https://www.mynt.xyz/about-us/ The significance of Mynt pertains to an announcement this past March. Globe Telecom with Ayala Corp and Ant Financial thru Mynt, partnered with MoneyGram to provide remittance services into the Philippines to smartphone users for their GCash mobile wallets. http://news.abs-cbn.com/business/tech-biz/03/08/18/globe-fintech-arm-moneygram-launch-smartphone-based-remittance-service MoneyGram is well known in the Ripple community for it's involvement in trialing xRapid for a pilot which utilizes the XRP Ledger (XRP) for cross-border payments. http://ir.moneygram.com/news-releases/news-release-details/ripple-and-moneygram-partner-modernize-payments As of now, we publicly know that Mynt (Globe Telecom, Ayala Corp, and Ant Financial) partnered with MoneyGram to improve remittance services into the Philippines for GCash mobile wallet users. MoneyGram states that it's intention on piloting XRP this past January was because the digital asset offered negligible transaction fees and because the average transaction time involving XRP is 2-3 seconds. Interesting enough, this new remittance service provided by both Alibaba and GCash involves HKD and PHP. And the transaction time publicly shared took only 3 seconds... After Alibaba's failure to acquire MoneyGram this past January (same time as MoneyGram's announcement of it's xRapid pilot), Alibaba was adamant that they would still collaborate with MoneyGram to develop remittance and digital payments to several countries including the Philippines........ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-moneygram-intl-m-a-ant-financial/u-s-blocks-moneygram-sale-to-chinas-ant-financial-on-national-security-concerns-idUSKBN1ER1R7 Very interesting times indeed! Time will only tell EDIT: (more speculation in regards to GCash & Western Union) GXI description, https://businessmirror.com.ph/western-union-expands-digital-distribution-through-gcash-mobile-wallets/

Mass Adoption is coming guys! Link to Western Union: https://www.westernunion.com/gb/en/zero-transfer-fees.html?src=LFC_zero_transfer2

Some may be freaking out over the Forbs piece which is title "Ripple’s XRP Isn’t Making Western Union’s Payments Cheaper, CEO Says" Here is the link if anyone didn't see it: http://fortune.com/2018/06/13/ripple-xrp-cryptocurrency-western-union/ I think the article takes him totally out of context. First off, consider the following quote from the article and pay attention to the underlined. “We are always criticized that Western Union is not cost-efficient, blah blah blah, but we did not see that part of the efficiency yet during our tests,” Ersek told Fortune in an interview Wednesday at the Economic Club of New York. Why in the world is he talking about western union being criticized for not being cost-efficient? It seems to me that he is responding to a question that was asked of him. The question may have gone as follows: why is the Western Union still not being cost-efficient if they're using xrp? If you consider that this was the question, then his full answer makes total sense. That's why he would be defending the cost that the company charges. If you will not use this explanation, the quote makes no sense. He also says "but we did not see that part of the efficiency yet during our tests. The word "yet" indicates that he may be expecting otherwise. Here is another "scary" quotes: “The practical matter is it’s still too expensive,” Ersek added, noting that Western Union would only be interested in adopting XRP for payments if it proved that it could lower the company’s costs. What does the word "it's" referring to? It doesn't really specify. You can either be referring to xrp, or he can be referring to transactions. And this may be a statement is that he was just trying to state that they will eventually adopt xrp only if it lowers the company's costs: Ersek added, noting that Western Union would only be interested in adopting XRP for payments if it proved that it could lower the company’s costs. Unless I am wrong, this article reflects super badly on the author.

ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU) announced today that Hikmet Ersek, President and CEO, and Raj Agrawal, Executive Vice President and CFO, will host a webcast and conference call to discuss first quarter 2018 results on May 1, 2018 at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. A press release highlighting the financial results will be issued at approximately 4:00 p.m. Eastern time the same day. The webcast and slide presentation will be available at http://ir.westernunion.com. Registration for the event is required, so please register at least five minutes prior to the scheduled start time. To listen to the conference call via telephone, dial 1 (888) 317-6003 (U.S.) or +1 (412) 317-6061 (outside the U.S.) ten minutes prior to the start of the call. The pass code is 4160099. A webcast replay will be available at http://ir.westernunion.com. About Western Union The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU) is a leader in global payment services. Together with its Vigo, Orlandi Valuta, Pago Facil and Western Union Business Solutions branded payment services, Western Union provides consumers and businesses with fast, reliable and convenient ways to send and receive money around the world, to send payments and to purchase money orders. As of December 31, 2017, the Western Union, Vigo and Orlandi Valuta branded services were offered through a combined network of over 550,000 agent locations in 200 countries and territories and over 150,000 ATMs and kiosks, and included the capability to send money to billions of accounts. In 2017, The Western Union Company completed 276 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, moving $82 billion of principal between consumers, and 547 million business payments. For more information, visit www.westernunion.com. WU-G Contacts Western Union Media Jennifer Pakradooni, +1 720-332-0516 jennifer.pakradooni@westernunion.com or Investors Mike Salop, +1 720-332-8276 mike.salop@westernunion.com SOURCE: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180406005083/en/Western-Union-Release-Quarter-Results-1-2018

1- Is WeChat (Tencent) indirectly also testing Ripples through Western Union? 2- Tencent to invest more in video, PAYMENT after profit beats estimates (source: Reuters). https://www.google.com.ni/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1GX0XA

https://theindependentrepublic.com/2018/03/23/ripples-xrp-xrapid-to-gain-more-ground-as-western-union-partners-gracekennedy-on-online-remittance/

Hello, today morning i went to western union agent to send money, i paid 60EUR fees and then i told the agent i hope when you will start using Ripple i will pay less fees he didn't know what is ripple.... i explained about ripple and the partnership with WU..... then he said that WU support 3 weeks ago installed platform in their PC and they inform them that soon they will start using this platform I think they will go live soon with Ripple

The strategy to target the remittance market is now plain for all to see; In my latest blog, I discuss the remittance processors and why this market will be the first one to utilize xRapid ahead of the banks. How big is the remittance market? How many of the top companies are implementing Ripple? The answers are inspiring. look into this industry, as well as the reasons why the top companies are all going in the direction of implementing Ripple technology. Hope you enjoy the read: Please leave any feedback below. Feel free to share my blog with a friend or on any other media - and thank you for doing so! Twitter Reddit r/Ripple Reddit r/CryptoCurrency Reddit r/CryptoMarkets Reddit r/xrp Reddit r/RippleTalk Bitcointalk - alt coin sub forum Bitcointalk - XRP speculation thread

The Western Union Company reported its earnings for the 2017 fourth quarter on Tuesday that showed its strong digital growth and testing implementation of xRapid which uses XRP for cross-border payments. Moreover ripple just confirmed on Twitter. https://viraldocks.com/western-union-announces-q4-earnings-ripple-test-drive/

Hello, It's my first post here although I jumped on the train in August. I want to thank you all for such great community. Also, I want to draw your attention to that part of the news about Western Union. When you think about Western Union most likely you think about cash transfer around the world to friends, family and etc. Yes, it's a big part of WU but Western Union is also big players on the market of international payments for companies and ....... BANKS. Many (I mean really MANY) small and medium-size banks in USA and around the globe use Western Union Business solutions for international payments and cards processing. For small banks, WU business is much cheaper and easier (due to stringent requirements) than direct correspondent accounts in large banks. And now think about that. If WU will begin to use XRP then all their customers (banks around the globe, companies and etc) will automatically use XRP in a day to day transactions. Although many of them will not even know about that You can find more information about WU Business at http://business.westernunion.com Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars....

Found this whitepaper document from the financial service provider Evry. It goes in to the development in the scandinavian banking sector and plans for banks in 2020. RippleNet is mentioned as probably the most promising of any Blockchain solution for the banking system. Evry is one of the most known software and services providers in Scandinavia. The biggest IT company in Norway, a country among the ones with the best liquidity in the economy and least corruption on the planet. quote: "Ripple plans to grow and add more bank partnerships in the near future. There have been strong indications that key Nordic financial institutions are experimenting with the Ripple network, and are considering a partnership." Western Union is shown to have been working with Ripplenet since 2015 if you scroll to pictures at the bottom of the page. Edit: It is from 2015. Warning. PDF file. https://www.evry.com/globalassets/insight/bank2020/bank-2020---blockchain-powering-the-internet-of-value---whitepaper.pdf