Due to regulatory requirements and consumer demand in Germany and France, MoneyGram opened company stores in both countries. The benefits of money transfers by MoneyGram: there is no need to open a checking account when implementing the transfer. Since going public two and a half years ago, MoneyGram has made great strides by pouring energy and resources into several critically important areas for business. In 2011, a global network of agents of MoneyGram has grown up to 256 000 service points, thus its growth is 24% compared to the same period of the previous year. AgentConnect continues to be an attractive alternative for businesses that choose to integrate their networks and point-of-sale platforms with the MoneyGram wired transfer. To 284 thousands of service points has grown global network of MoneyGram agent offices in the 2nd quarter of 2012 due to India, Spain and Africa, thus its growth was 16%. In March 2012, the company MoneyGram merged with the network of U.S. payment centers ZipZap.