Western Union partners with Smart, Globe on OFW remittances

Western Union Co., the global leader in money transfer services, has tied up with the country’s two largest mobile phone companies - Globe Telecoms and Smart Communications -in a bid to capture a wider market of overseas Filipinos.

Smart and Western Union have agreed to develop a mobile money transfer service in the country that will make low-denomination, high-frequency remittances to the country’s more than eight million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

“This agreement is in line with Smart’s thrust to continuously develop low-cost and convenient mobile remittance channels and communications services for overseas Filipino workers," Napoleon Nazareno, president of Smart, explained.

“We believe pairing Western Union’s global reach with Smart’s active subscriber base and access to Philippine bank networks will increase the ease and flexibility associated with moving money back home to friends and family," said Patricia Riingen, Western Union vice president for the Philippines.

Approximately 44 percent of households in the country have a relative or family member working abroad, she noted.

More than seven million Smart subscribers were in the Smart Money system, close to two million of whom are cardholders.

Smart has agreements with five Philippine commercial banks and links to over 7,000 ATMs nationwide, more than 100 Smart Wireless Centers and thousands of third-party Smart Money fulfillment partners.

Once the Western Union mobile money transfer service is commercially offered by the second quarter of 2008, the service will connect operators to Western Union ’s existing global money transfer system, which processed approximately 17 percent of the world’s cross-border remittance volume in 2006.

When connected to the Western Union service, operators will be able to use their own “mobile wallet" software to enable person-to-person mobile money transfers over Western Union ’s cross-border remittance network. The Mobile Money Transfer service will enable consumers to transfer money to or from mobile wallets and will offer a global network of Western Union Agent locations for cash-to-mobile and mobile-to-cash transactions.

Western Union Co. also entered into an agreement with Globe Telecom and its wholly-owned subsidiary, G-Xchange, Inc.

Globe offers its GCASH service with an “electronic wallet" feature that allows users to send and receive cash and make payments, including bill payments, donations and online purchases via texting. Globe Telecom had more than 19 million subscribers as of the end of September 2007 and close to half a million active GCASH users.

“We envision that this relationship with Western Union will increase the accessibility and lower the cost of micro-remittances, which will greatly benefit Filipino overseas workers and their families here in the Philippines," explained Ferdinand M. Dela Cruz, Consumer Wireless Business Group Head of Globe.

“This agreement will further expand our cross-border mobile commerce hub that allows multi-currency money transfers to mobile operators around the world, linking our groundbreaking GCASH service to a global network of send and receive locations through Western Union," he said.

“We see a tremendous opportunity to deliver Western Union remittances in new and compelling electronic formats," said Matt Dill, General Manager, Western Union Mobile. “The GCASH service introduced by Globe is widely recognized as one of the mobile industry’s most appealing service offerings for banked and unbanked consumers alike. In combining Globe’s strengths with Western Union ’s global reach and compliance capabilities, we can introduce financial services to a new segment of consumers."

World Bank estimates the number of immigrants worldwide at about 200 million – approximately three percent of the world’s total population.

The Philippines is the fourth-largest receiver of remittances in the world, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

OFWs sent more than $13 billion home in the first 11 months of 2007, a 14 percent increase over the same period last year. - GMANews.TV

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