US government blocks MoneyGrams sale to Ant Financial

Ant Financial announced plans to buy MoneyGram in January 2017 as a means to develop its cross-border payment network into the US, and major corridors including India and the Philippines, but it explored and developed initiatives for collaboration with the company instead. Per terms of the agreement, Ant has paid USD 30 million to MoneyGram for terminating the acquisition process.

The failure of the deal will impact Ant Financial, the company spending resources in 2017 developing its mobile payment network beyond China and into Southeast Asia, India, Korea, Japan and other parts of Asia with a series of partnerships and investments. MoneyGram would have added the US and increased the potential to give Ant a physical network of cross-border offices and a large share of the global cross-payment industry.