Western Union Increases International Mobile Presence

Western Union is making a major push to provide mobile money remittance transfers with an international reach.

The traditionally cash-based wire service launched its mobile-phone remittance service in 2007, and since then, has been pushing to expand its reach by partnering up with money service providers around the world.

According to Khalid Fellahi, SVP and GM of Western Union Digital, Western Union has a presence in 23 countries and has over 500,000 locations around the world.

Western Union’s focus is to ink exclusive partnership deals with mobile wallet providers in their respective countries, though exclusivity is sometimes prohibited in certain countries while some emerging markets have few or no regulations.

Recently, Western Union partnered with payment processors in emerging markets such as in Nepal and Nigeria, along with enabling money transfers through U.S. Bank’s mobile app.

According to Mobile Payments Today, Western Union’s observed year-over-year 26% growth in electronic payment revenues.

Western Union also reports 68% increase in consumer-to-consumer transactions on its westernunion.com transactional sites and a 25% growth in consumer-to-consumer revenue.

Though Western Union enjoys a high brand awareness and a ubiquity that’s unmatched, the company still had to adapt to new consumer trends.

According to Fellahi, a major part of the Western Union’s success stems from moving their mobile division to San Francisco, where they invested in technologies and platforms and witnessed a 68% growth in volume.