Western Union is focused on expanding its digital capabilities, creating stronger customer experiences, and building brand loyalty. Western Union CFO Raj Agrawal, the CFO of Western Union discussed these strategic themes at the Sept. 16 Deutsche Bank 2015 Technology Brokers Conference.
“As we focus in this business going forward, our area of emphasis will continue to be to expand our digital capabilities and to expand our digital and physical network globally, so more bank account funding, more bank pay out, more mobile funding, mobile capabilities around the world, more online sites all around the world, and our WU.com business as well as filling in white spaces around the world with our retail network,” Agrawal said, according to Seeking Alpha.
Customer experience is seen by many loyalty marketers as the key differentiator.
“We are also improving the customer experience,” Agrawal said. “We want deeper relationships with customers and we want to be able to engage with customers on a regular basis, not just at the point of transactions. Because where we can talk to them and create that relationship with the customers, we want a faster and smoother transaction process, which we are very focused on doing.”
Consumer money transfer accounts for about 80% of Western Union revenue, Agrawal said.
“And although the vast majority of this business is still done at a retail location in cash, the electronic channels piece of it is growing at a very fast pace and now makes up about 7% of our total revenue,” he explained. “Now if you think about what sets Western Union apart from other money movement providers, you really have to think about our vast cross-border platform that’s in the middle of our business, really serves as the hub for our global money transfer network. We allow consumers to really transact with us in a variety of different ways whether it’s through mobile channel, online, through one of our online sites, or through a bank or even a retail location, we want them to transact with us through whatever channels available to them.”
Western Union operates in 200 countries and territories around the world.
“We have over half a million major locations,” Agrawal noted. “We have more than 100,000 ATMs and kiosks. We also have WesternUnion.com sites in 29 markets and we also have mobile capability in the US, U.K., and Australia, and for WesternUnion.com registered customers. We also are expanding our third-party digital relationships to provide services in other ways. And then our B2B business gives us an opportunity to provide services to a variety of additional partners that we have in service in the past. But if you look at our cross-border platform, we can settle transactions in minutes all around the world in 130 currencies and we have the compliance and regulatory capability to be able to manage that transaction grow in a complex regulatory environment. And we believe this will be a competitive advantage longer term for us as the regulatory requirements spread throughout the industry.”