By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Leader in global payments, Western Union Company, on Wednesday, announced that it has further strengthened its global digital money transfer footprint, with the activation of its 40th wu.com transactional website, now providing full digital access for cross-border person-to-person (P2P) money transfer services across major developed nations including the US, Canada and major parts of Europe.
Wu.com is also active in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. Western Union plans to continue to expand its digital presence across Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Latin America and the Caribbean in the next phase of its online expansion, augmenting the company’s retail Agent footprint in more than 200 countries and territories, the firm said.
“The continuous advancement of our digital innovation over the past several years allows us to stay ahead of the needs of the modern money mover, and we are serving them across a multitude of currencies, languages and borders,” said Odilon Almeida, President of Western Union Global Money Transfer.
“Our customers want different options to send and receive money around the globe, and our ability to bridge their digital and physical worlds – whether it is bank-to-bank, through web, app to cash or cash to cash – through our fast, reliable and convenient digital and retail cross-border money transfer platform, is Western Union’s key differentiator,” Almeida added.
According to the World Bank, while more than 75 percent of cross-border P2P transfers are sent into developing countries, people send money from nearly every country in the world.
Western Union’s digital expansion provides further choice not only to consumers who may have migrated and are working and living in their host countries, but also to a new generation of consumers who live in their home countries and need to move money in an increasingly globalized world.
These consumers send money for a variety of reasons, such as their child’s international college tuition, to scale up their small business, to fund travel and tourism, to buy goods and services, or for gifting purposes.
Digital-initiated money transfer remains a high growth area and is expected to be the major driver of overall market growth in the coming years. With over $340 million of westernunion.com money transfer revenue in 2016, Western Union is well poised to continue to meet the increasing consumer demand.
In Q1 2017, more than 60 percent of wu.com transactions were initiated on a mobile device. This digital ramp-up follows the recent launches of Apple Pay as a funding method for digital users in the U.S., and Western Union’s money transfer bot for Messenger, which enables users in the U.S. to make international money transfers without leaving the Messenger app.
