Western Union has chosen Noah, the London stablecoin payments company, to run the infrastructure behind Receiver Redirect, a service that lets the recipient of a Western Union transfer collect the money as a stablecoin. The companies announced the deal on 20 October.
The service is built on USDPT, Western Union’s US dollar stablecoin, which is issued by Anchorage Digital Bank on the Solana blockchain. A sender uses one of Western Union’s agent locations, which the companies put at more than half a million, and the recipient collects USDPT into a Western Union wallet. Users can then hold it indefinitely in Stablecard, the wallet product Western Union announced in August.
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What Noah provides
Noah supplies what the companies call the on-chain banking network behind the service. That covers the treasury and licensing needed to pre-fund, convert and pay out USDPT to recipients, and local regulatory compliance.
Western Union’s Malcolm Clarke, global head of digital assets called the service ‘a global first”.
Noah’s founder and chief executive, Shah Ramezani, described it as ‘a watershed moment’ for stablecoins.
The companies say Receiver Redirect will cover more than 60 currencies and more than 200 countries and territories, and that it will cut transfer times from days to hours. They say fees will fall from about 6% of the transfer value, a figure they attribute to the World Bank, to ‘a fraction’ of that.
Where USDPT stands
Western Union launched USDPT on 4 May, starting in the Philippines and Bolivia, with Fireblocks providing wallet and settlement infrastructure. It described the coin then as a settlement asset for its own network.
Stablecard, a Visa card backed by USDPT and run with Rain, launched on 4 August in 37 countries, with a plan to reach 60 or more by the end of the year. About $7.4 million of USDPT was in circulation at that point, Solana Compass reported. Western Union cites more than 150 million customers overall and hasn’t said how many will use the service.
Noah’s position
Noah closed a $38 million seed round on 7 October, which we , and said it had signed more than 150 customers this year without naming any. On 15 October it said it had secured an EU crypto-asset service provider licence under MiCA and a payment institution licence under the EU’s payment services directive. It also holds US money transmitter licences and a Canadian payment service provider registration.
The announcement doesn’t say which markets Receiver Redirect will start in or when. It doesn’t say whether Noah is Western Union’s only infrastructure provider or what the commercial terms are.
