Western Union Launches 40th Wu.com Website For Money Transfers

The Western Union Company, a global payments company, announced Wednesday (May 10) that it has activated 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 U.S., Canada and major parts of Europe.

In a press release, Western Union said wu.com is also active in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. Western Union said it plans to continue to increase its digital presence across Asia Pacific, the Middle East, 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 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, in the press release. “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.”

Citing data from the World Bank, Western Union said that although 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 said its digital expansion gives more choice 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 to pay for their child’s international college tuition, to scale up their small business, to fund travel and tourism, to buy goods and services or to purchase gifts.

The digital transfer of money is a high growth area that is expected to be a big driver of growth for the market for the next few years. In 2016, Western Union said it has more than $340 million in westernunion.com money transfer revenue.