Western Union Rolls Out X-Border Social P2P

Western Union is making money transfers a little more social.

Yesterday (Oct. 26), the company launched WU Connect, a technology platform that integrates with consumer messaging and social media platforms to enable users to quickly and conveniently transfer money throughout the world.

Embedding Western Union’s existing global money transfer capability into third-party platforms, WU Connect allows the sender to transmit funds from a debit card, credit card or a bank account — via those platforms — to a recipient.

“At Western Union, we are actively listening to the voice of consumers and using that feedback as the basis for innovation in all of cross-border money transfer and payment capabilities,” Western Union President and CEO Hikmet Ersek stated in a press release. “We are continuing to build upon our core strengths, expanding our digital business, investing in technology and compliance capabilities to connect the digital and physical worlds.”

Also commenting in the release was David Thompson, EVP, Global Operations and Technology and CTO at Western Union, who remarked of WU Connect: “This puts Western Union in a position to extend its digital platform to networks whose users are looking for more convenient ways to send and receive money globally on a platform of their choice.”

Though no specific social or messaging platforms are cited in the release, it is expressed that Western Union plans to enter into conversations with related companies about the integration of WU Connect.

Presently, the WU Connect platform offers a suite of application programming interfaces (APIs) built on a scalable infrastructure for the purposes of enabling deployment of domestic and cross-border remittance capabilities.

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