Why Stablecoins Could Transform Cross Border Payments

Welcome to FinTech TV.

We are broadcasting from the NYC Texas studios in Dallas, Texas.

And joining me as my guest today is Anthony Suhu, who is CEO and chairman of MoneyGram.

Anthony, wonderful to have you on set today.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you for inviting me.

It's great to be here.

Well, MoneyGram is headquartered here in Dallas, so I can't think of a better location to have you join me.

So first and foremost, tell me about what you're working on right now and the future of MoneyGram.

Yeah, so I joined MoneyGram a little less than two years ago, and we're on this journey right now to refound the company.

What we mean by that is we're rethinking, if we were to start MoneyGram today, what this company would look like, which means that we're transforming the company from a traditional remittance business that's been around for 85 years into a modern financial network company that's going to be much more open, a lot more connected, and I think a lot more useful for our customers.

Yeah, and MoneyGram is indeed a household name out there.

So when it comes to blockchain, as well as what you're doing on Solano, walk us through what this will look like, say, in a year from now.

Yeah, so when we think about MoneyGram, like I mentioned, our network, we believe over time will be a lot more useful for a lot more uses.

And our announcement with Solana kind of reinforces that point.

And the reason is that we have signed a partnership with Solana where we're first a validator, on their network.

And number two, we're actually opening up our network to Solana developers so they can develop through our API and get connected to MoneyGram's 500,000 retail locations around the world.

What's exciting about it is that we really see MoneyGram as a foundational layer to connect the physical network with the digital economy.

And so this is just another part in terms of supporting that point.

Yeah.

And speaking of the digital economy, I do want to expand the conversation by talking about MGUSD.

So this is the stablecoin and it's not just any stablecoin.

So tell us about the significance of this.

Yeah, so you've probably heard a lot about various different forms of stablecoin.

I think most of the stablecoins that's been launched up to this point is really focused around the idea of speculation and trading.

We built this actually as part of a foundational layer for MoneyGram to be able to build applications on top.

And so the reason we believe that we needed to build our own stable coin is because just as technology companies typically start thinking about vertical integration, perfect example is Apple, where they build their own processors to optimize performance. of the iPhone.

We believe it was important for us to own our own Stablecoin, which became MGUSD, so we can build new applications on top to allow our customers to really be able to store, send, and save their money in our network in a much more efficient way, and you might ask, so it's an end-user benefit for the consumer.

The way we see it is that we won't actually mention much about Stablecoin at all, just like Apple doesn't talk about their processor.

It's really about building utility for the consumer.

Yes.

And heading into 2026, stablecoins was in the spotlight, as well as regulation and institutional adoption.

So I do want to ask you about the technology, in particular, the infrastructure.

So tell us why infra is so important.

Well, infrastructure is really everything because what a consumer sees is what gets delivered to them in front end.

But to make that work in this very complex way of moving money around the world, you need the right infrastructure for it.

Blockchain allows us to do it, send and move money around the world in a much more efficient way.

And we believe over time to be much more efficient for us.

Some of the benefits that we see for blockchain, especially stablecoin in terms of moving money around the world is it allows us to be able to do it instantly, including weekends, which is right now a big limitation.

And it also eliminates some intermediaries, which ultimately means that we can lower the costs for our customers, allow them to get their funds in a much more timely fashion and be a lot more transparent.

And I think all those are going to be reasons why this is going to take off.

And we can't have a conversation about digital assets and technology without bringing in artificial intelligence, in particular, agentic AI, especially when we're talking about moving money in real time around the globe.

So what is your perspective when it comes to agentic AI?

There's a few things I would say, maybe as a step back, I would say most people when you think about AI up to this point, it's been software to give people answers to their questions.

When you think about agentic AI, it's really AI now or software that allows you to actually get work done.

And I think that's going to be the big differentiator.

Now, the thing about moving money around, it is all dependent on the concept of trust, which is why MoneyRam has existed in one of our big, I think, competitive strengths.

So when we're talking about a world where there's gentic AI, I believe that the question won't be, that can the agents get the work done.

It's going to be who allowed or gave the authority for that agent to do that work.

And I think a lot of that stuff is still being worked out, but it should be interesting to watch.

But I do think that that's going to have to be defined before a Gentic AI actually takes off in the financial services industry, because you're talking about transactions between two people and there needs to be a level of trust to be able to connect the two.

And finally, Anthony, before I let you go, you've been entrenched in tech for many decades.

So what is the vision moving forward for MoneyGram?

Yeah, it's pretty simple, actually.

Our vision for MoneyGram is to be much more open, to be a lot more useful, and hopefully allow our customers to manage their financial lives in a much more efficient way.

And the way we're going to do that is we're going to leverage a lot of new modern technologies we mentioned around blockchain, stablecoin, as well as AI, and we're excited about our future.

Anthony, thank you so much for joining us today and thank you so much for sharing your insights as well as your perspective here at NYC Texas.

It's great to be here.

Thank you.