Exclusive: Alex Holmes on MoneyGram’s transformation and growth journey

The company went private through an acquisition by private equity after a 19-year-long stint on the NASDAQ. Tell us the inspiration behind the privatisation and what’s next for the company.

MoneyGram has undergone a rapid transformation over the last several years to expand our digital capabilities and adapt to the evolving needs of our customers.

By partnering with Madison Dearborn Partners (MDP) and becoming a private company in June of this year, we have set ourselves up for greater opportunities to innovate and transform MoneyGram to lead the industry in cross-border payment technology and deliver a more expansive set of digital offerings.

The completed acquisition provides exciting opportunities for our dedicated MoneyGram team and partners, and I’m incredibly excited about the path ahead.

What are your growth priorities and how do plan to supercharge the company’s growth strategy? Which products and services look promising in the current climate?

We are prioritising the enhancement and expansion of our market-leading cross-border capabilities and digital platform. The continued digitisation of remittances is playing a major role in a more seamless consumer experience and lower fees across the board, so we’re laser-focused on providing the right digital options on both the send and receive side.

Further, we’re planning for the MoneyGram of the future to be an industry-leading global fintech providing an expansive set of offerings. To execute this strategy, we are looking at ways to leverage our global platform for additional use cases and thinking differently about how MoneyGram – and its leading cross-border technology – can play additional roles in the lives of consumers globally.

Digital transformation is driving innovation and changes in the financial services industry. How are you leveraging digital technologies across your portfolio?

MoneyGram continues to lead the industry with a global network of retail locations, as many of our consumers rely on cash sends and receives. It’s an important part of who we are and our philosophy, and it drives our customers’ lives forward. That said, we know that many migrant communities continue to get younger and are digitally native users of multiple technologies. The continued push of internet and mobile tech is making financial services change, and that’s an initiative we undertook awhile back.

We’ve arrived at a great place today where we’ve pushed so much change around the world. Today, 50 per cent of our business globally is now digital, and as I mentioned previously, we’re leaning toward driving continued digital growth. Our direct-to-consumer app offers an immersive digital experience, evidenced by its fast-growing user base and 4.9-star review, and we’ve expanded to offer more receive options through partnerships with leading mobile wallets and card providers.

How do you envision the digital remittances market in the medium term in light of an increasingly competitive marketplace?

The worldwide cross-border payments market has a notional value of $190tn today and is expected to grow to $290tn by 2030. It’s a vital component of the global economy, and one that’s been ripe for digital innovation. The industry is changing rapidly as key players like MoneyGram continue to innovate and offer new digital solutions that make payments fast, secure and affordable for billions of consumers around the world.

Within this increasingly competitive marketplace, we’re confident that MoneyGram will remain an industry leader as we continue to see huge opportunities to drive growth with an approach that is both digitally focused-and human-centric.

Additionally, as blockchain and digital currencies may play a role in the future evolution of the remittance industry, we’ve set MoneyGram up for success by being at the forefront of progressive innovation in the industry. For example, we’re partnering with organisations such as the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) to look at ways blockchain can further streamline cross-border payments.

How does GCC’s remittances market compare to other emerging markets?

MoneyGram has become the largest digital MTO Enabler in the Middle East. With a growing number of digital partners in the region, MoneyGram’s business has surpassed 80 per cent digital in the region (compared to 50 per cent globally). This is led by digital growth particularly in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and UAE markets.

As a result, we have seen a huge impact on consumer fees, which are now at an incredibly low average of about 1.5 per cent in the region. This is significantly lower than the global industry average reported by the World Bank (6.3 per cent), and already well-ahead of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to reduce transaction costs of remittances to less than 3 per cent by 2030

What challenges are you facing in the markets that you are currently present in?  

One challenge is the need to continue to evolve to a digital-first model to meet consumer demand (as I touched on before) but to also look at demand as a market-specific story. Many communities around the world would agree that digital is the way of the future, but there are as many views of that as there are people who share the sentiment that cash is still king.

For example, I was just in Spain and 10 per cent of that market is probably digital, while the rest is still cash. It’s going to stay that way for a while because it’s just not a very digitised marketplace for many things and is still a very cash-based economy. Looking ahead, we’ll continue to invest in digital, but we will also continue to maintain and support our cash business along the way. In the end, MoneyGram is committed to providing consumers around the world the ability to choose the option that best meets their unique needs.

Another challenge can sometimes be consumer education around digital solutions. It is expensive and time consuming to educate consumers on the digital options they have on hand, but it’s incredibly important. We are committed to not only transforming our business but also helping and supporting our customers to understand their options to ensure money gets home to those who need it.