Ripple Wraps Western Union's Old Unit in a Stablecoin Sandwich

Ripple Labs is getting cozy with Convera, the former Western Union Business Solutions, in a deal to "enhance global payments through stablecoin and blockchain infrastructure." Convera handles over 140 currencies across roughly 200 countries and territories—pretty solid street cred for a fintech that got scooped up for $910 million back in 2021. For those keeping score at home, Western Union was literally delivering telegrams when dinosaurs were still a viable mode of transportation, so watching their old spin-off get into stablecoins is like seeing your grandpa discover Tinder.

"With the growing presence and use of digital currencies such as crypto and stablecoins, Convera has maintained a thoughtful approach by listening to what our customers want while watching this space continue to mature," Convera CEO Patrick Gauthier said in a statement. The former head of Amazon Pay added that "Ripple is a clear leader in the crypto space and a natural fit for Convera." Nothing says "we've done our homework" quite like bringing in a guy who once helped people pay for things on Amazon to now help people pay for things with blockchain. The circle of fintech life is truly beautiful.

The two companies are rolling out what they're calling a "stablecoin sandwich" model—payments start and end in fiat, but stablecoins do the heavy lifting in the middle. "Enterprises are increasingly looking for faster, more flexible ways to move money globally without taking on the complexity of digital assets directly," Ripple SVP of Product Aaron Slettehaugh said. So basically, it's like a crypto burrito where the beans and guac are on-chain but the tortilla is good old-fashioned government money. Banks get to dip their toes in the DeFi pool without actually getting their socks wet. Revolutionary stuff.

Ripple's been on a partnership spree lately. Just last week, the company joined the Singapore central bank's BLOOM initiative to pilot programmable cross-border trade settlements using the XRP Ledger and their dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD. Nothing says "we're down with crypto" quite like a central bank launching an initiative with a cool acronym. BLOOM apparently stands for something, but honestly, at this point, when a central bank says they're doing blockchain stuff, the vibes matter more than the spelling. Ripple out.