MoneyGram puts a stablecoin-funded Visa card in Colombian users' hands

What happened

MoneyGram has launched a virtual Visa card that spends a stablecoin-backed dollar balance held inside its mobile app, with Colombia as the first market, according to crypto.news, The Defiant and U.Today. The Defiant reports the card went live on Thursday; crypto.news dates the announcement to Sept. 10.

The product is assembled from three outside providers, crypto.news and The Defiant report: Rain supplies the card issuing and the connection to Visa's network, Crossmint supplies the wallet technology the balances sit in, and Stellar is the blockchain the underlying transactions run on. The Defiant reports MoneyGram chose Rain for a single API integration that fit the providers it already used, citing Rain.

Eligible customers apply inside the MoneyGram app and can link the card to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet for online and contactless payments wherever Visa is accepted, per crypto.news. U.Today reports the card is available after users complete identity verification, and that balances are held in USDC and converted at checkout into fiat pesos for settlement across Visa's network. The Defiant likewise reports the card is powered by USDC at launch, with MoneyGram planning for its own token, MGUSD, to power it in the near future, according to a MoneyGram spokesperson.

The virtual card does not provide direct ATM withdrawals, crypto.news reports. Cardholders who need physical currency can send money to themselves and collect local cash at a participating MoneyGram location. A physical card is planned for late 2026, adding ATM access and in-person purchases where digital wallets are not supported, per crypto.news, with U.Today reporting the same end-of-2026 timing and expansion to other countries in the region.

Crypto.news quotes chairman and chief executive Anthony Soohoo saying, "We're giving customers more freedom and control to manage their money, all in one place," a line The Defiant also carries. The Defiant reports Rain framed the shift as "the recipient becomes the customer" and, on X, that "the card completes the loop."

The numbers

MoneyGram reports more than 60 million active customers and operations across more than 200 countries and territories, figures carried by both crypto.news and The Defiant; crypto.news notes they come from MoneyGram and were not independently audited in the card announcement. The Defiant reports Rain's claim that the card spends at more than 175 million merchant locations and that MoneyGram is on pace to route roughly $3 billion of its annual FX trading through stablecoins, and cites Crossmint for MoneyGram having more than 6,000 branches in Colombia.

On fees, The Defiant reports MoneyGram's product page states no monthly or annual fee and no purchase fees at launch, adding that "an inactivity fee applies only if the card has no activity for 3 or more months," without giving the amount or linking the fee schedule it references. Crypto.news reports MoneyGram has not published the fees, foreign-exchange spread or card-transaction charges for the Colombian product, nor the next markets or pricing structure.

The Defiant cites Stellar network data showing MGUSD, issued by Stripe subsidiary Bridge on June 2, with 25.2 million tokens outstanding across 21 authorized accounts and another 338 accounts holding unauthorized trustlines; the asset is permissioned, requiring issuer authorization and allowing clawback. USDC on Stellar stands at $346.8 million and the chain holds $242.3 million in DeFi value, per DefiLlama as cited by The Defiant, which also reports XLM at $0.177, down 4.3% over 24 hours on $169 million of volume, according to CoinGecko.

Context

The Defiant reports Colombia received $13.1 billion in remittances last year, up 10.6%, citing the Colombian presidency citing central bank data, and that MoneyGram picked the country for its app because it is an inbound corridor where the peso has weakened against the dollar over the past decade.

Crypto.news sets the launch against the World Bank's September 2025 remittance-pricing report, which found the global average cost of sending $200 was 6.36% in the third quarter of 2025, with digital services at 4.59% against 7.30% for nondigital. Debit-card disbursement was the cheapest payout method measured at 3.61% across 48 services, while credit and debit cards were the cheapest funding instrument at 4.39%, against 7.01% for cash and 8.69% for bank accounts. The dataset covered 48 sending countries, 105 receiving countries and 367 corridors, and MoneyGram and Western Union appeared in its operator index with coverage of 90% and 95% of tracked corridors respectively.

Both crypto.news and The Defiant note Rain now supplies cards to both large retail remittance names: The Defiant reports Rain launched Stablecard with Western Union in 37 markets on Aug. 4, spending Western Union's USDPT, bought merchant wallet startup Ansa the following week, and raised $250 million in a Series C led by ICONIQ in January at a $1.95 billion valuation, after a $58 million Series B led by Sapphire Ventures. The Defiant also reports MoneyGram has worked with the Stellar Development Foundation and Circle since 2021, brought its cash ramps to Solana in August, became a Solana validator in June, and validates on Tempo and Midnight — the Solana ramp integration also reported by crypto.news.

Disputed or unconfirmed

The outlets differ on the backing asset. Crypto.news reports MoneyGram's release did not identify which stablecoin backs customer balances, nor its reserve arrangement or redemption terms, and did not say whether customers hold tokens directly or a platform balance representing them. The Defiant and U.Today both state the card is powered by USDC at launch, The Defiant sourcing MGUSD's future role to a MoneyGram spokesperson.

Dates also diverge: crypto.news puts the announcement on Sept. 10 and says MGUSD was introduced on Stellar in June 2026, while The Defiant dates the launch to Thursday and MGUSD's issuance to June 2, and refers to a Colombia app announcement of Sept. 17, 2025.

The Defiant flags two further gaps: the issuing bank is unnamed, with Rain's site saying cards are issued through licensed partners and its banking services come from SSB, a US institution that would not cover a Colombian program; and MoneyGram's product page puts its retail footprint at "nearly 480,000" locations while the launch release says nearly 500,000, the higher figure being the one crypto.news carries. U.Today notes stablecoin balances are not bank deposits and carry no government deposit insurance.