MoneyGram Teams Up with Brightwell on Money Transfers for Cruise Workers

MoneyGram International, one of the world's largest money transfer companies, has partnered with FinTech Brightwell to help cruise industry crew members around the world easily transfer funds home while at sea via the Brightwell app.

The partnership will help crew members support their friends and family in over 200 countries and territories worldwide without having to wait until their ship arrives at port to complete a money transfer.

"We're excited to partner with Brightwell and deliver a convenient, digitally-enabled experience that will save crew members valuable time and money while also providing more options for those receiving the funds," said Alex Holmes, MoneyGram Chairman and CEO.

Last month MoneyGram announced a partnership with Visa to expand its debit card deposit service to Spain and the Philippines. MoneyGram is also now the first company to allow cross-border transfers from the U.S. using Visa Direct, with plans to launch in more countries in the future. The company has also extended its agreement with Walmart to provide MoneyGram-branded money transfers into 2021.

All of this follows a recent $50 million investment by Ripple, giving the payments company almost 10 percent of MoneyGram’s common stock and approximately 15 percent on a fully-diluted basis including non-voting warrants held by Ripple. MoneyGram said at the time that it planned to use the capital to develop and expand its On-Demand Liquidity payment system, which uses XRP.

Atlanta-based Brightwell provides financial services including cross-border remittance, P2P transfers, and digital bank accounts, to workers from more than 140 countries using its mobile platform.

"It's our mission at Brightwell to serve the financial needs of crew members through cutting-edge products and thoughtful innovation," said Mike Gaburo, CEO of Brightwell.

In October, the company announced that it was partnering with tech provider NCR to increase cash availability for global workers through ATMs and managed services for several of Brightwell's largest cruise line clients. That same month, it also revealed a collaboration with London-based Travelex, a cross-border financial services and payments firm that will manage the cash distribution of different currencies to over 75 ATMs provided by Brightwell on cruise ships.