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MoneyGram International, Inc., a leading global financial technology company that connects the world’s communities announced a strategic partnership with Astra Tech (Astra), a technology investment and development group based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the owner of BOTIM, the largest and most popular Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solution in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) with over 90 million registered users.
Through this innovative partnership, BOTIM is the region’s first communications platform to enable its users to seamlessly send money around the world in near real-time.
“As we increasingly look to capture growth by opening our global network to new use cases, we are thrilled to offer our leading international money transfer capabilities on the most trusted consumer messaging platform across the Middle East,” said Alex Holmes, MoneyGram Chairman and CEO. “We continue to be excited about the demand for our services – not only do millions of consumers around the world rely on MoneyGram for their daily financial needs, but more and more of the world’s top organizations are now seeking to embed our fintech capabilities into their service offerings.”
“Partnering with MoneyGram will allow us to leverage their unparalleled security and offer BOTIM users world-class financial services. Together, we are revolutionizing international money transfers by making it as seamless as sending a text message,” said Abdallah Abu Sheikh, Astra Tech Founder and BOTIM CEO. “This represents our ability to connect people not only socially but also financially, while demonstrating our arrival as the first chat-based communication platform that enables people to send money home with a click of a button.”
Astra Tech is on a mission to create a platform that will offer everything from instant messaging to digital payments. Earlier this month, Astra Tech acquired BOTIM, making the company one of the largest communications technology platforms in the MENA region. After recently distributing a poll asking consumers which new service they were most interested in accessing through the BOTIM app, more than 2 million responses in 48 hours indicated that international money transfer was the top priority.
“MoneyGram has spent over 80 years building one of the world’s largest P2P payment networks, and today’s announcement highlights the potential for all kinds of organizations to plug into that,” said Grant Lines, MoneyGram Chief Revenue Officer. “I am excited to see this partnership take form as it advances our leading position in the Middle East and spurs a positive impact for our business while we continue uncovering new opportunities to create meaningful processing revenue in the years ahead.”
