Western Union has officially launched their Stablecard.
In a collaboration with Rain as the stablecoin card issuer, the international remittance and money transfer provider is acting on its stablecoin strategy mentioned a few months earlier.
Western Union is now enabling millions of users to use their remittance account and Stablecard as a spending and savings balance, switching on access in 37 global markets.
The stablecoin card will transact natively in the USDPT stablecoin, which is dollar-backed with stablecoin reserves managed by digital asset bank and custodian Anchorage Digital. Its current market cap is around $6.8M per DefiLlama data.
USDPT was recently launched on Solana and is part of broader plan to modernize the company.
Stablecoins for Remittance
The battle for stablecoin remittance is happening in real-time.
Only a few days ago, Remitly had announced their own global card, which has the ability to hold USDC stablecoin balance for its global users. However, it is not a native stablecoin card.
Western Union has already 175M merchants with physical locations where cash can be transferred and collected, and with the latest stablecoin Visa card, this geographical reach only increases.
One takeaway is that the dominance of the U.S. Dollar in stablecoin transfers is only strengthening, as international remittance transfers help stablecoins like USDPT and USDC expand. Additionally, the stablecoin remittance narrative has opened up a new way to monetize users.
While earlier on remittance providers largely considered stablecoin remittance a matter of speed (24/7), cheaper costs (depending on rails chosen), and optimization (treasury management), stablecoin cards allow customers use idle balances via card spending.
For individuals sending money abroad and back to their families at home, it can now function as a global account, including features such as ATM withdrawals and Google/Apple wallet pay.
This is especially true for corridors such as Mexico to the U.S., where Western Union’s presence is continuing to grow and its transaction volumes have increased as per Q2 earnings report.
