Western Union CEO Views Stablecoins as an Opportunity, Not a Threat: Bloomberg

Stablecoins are an “opportunity, not a threat,” for international money transfer company Western Union, according to CEO Devin McGranahan.

McGranahan said in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday that anything allowing users to send money faster and cheaper across borders is going to be good for Western Union and its customers.

Stablecoins are crypto tokens pegged to the value of a traditional financial asset, such as a fiat currency, with the U.S. dollar being the most prevalent.

Allowing users to send value denominated in U.S. dollars across borders using blockchain technology, making transfers faster, cheaper and more efficient than traditional methods, would appear to be a disruptor of Western Union’s business case.

“Last I checked, you couldn’t spend stablecoin if you wanted to buy a Coca Cola, so converting stablecoins into fiat currencies, particularly in harder to convert currencies, is an opportunity for us,” McGranahan said.

For such users, a stablecoin may represent a store of value, he added.

Stablecoins have formed the backbone of new cryptocurrency regulation in the U.S., with the first significant crypto bill, known as the GENIUS act, becoming law last week.

The GENIUS act creates a definition for stablecoin payments, with the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency overseeing their issuance by banks and non-banks respectively.