Western Union Expands Its Global Platform Now to New Partners in Asia

Japan’s KYODAI Remittance and Korea’s Fintech Hanpass Money Transfer Companies Will Now Use Western Union’s Global Network

DENVER & TOKYO & SEOUL, South Korea–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Western Union, a leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments, today further expanded its white label offerings* to Asia enabling customers of third-party money transfer companies to pay out through Western Union.

Customers of Japan’s oldest remittance company KYODAI Remittance, a service of Unidos Co., Ltd., and Korea’s leading fintech company Hanpass, became the latest collaborators to move funds globally through Western Union. Their customers may choose to pay out into billions of bank accounts in more than 100 countries, millions of wallets in a dozen countries or the Western Union^® retail Agent network across 200 countries and territories.

Western Union has opened its cross-border platform to power other brands to move money and enable international cross-border payments in minutes by leveraging its core cross-border assets – including global settlement capabilities, compliance, operations, network, and technology systems.

During his visit to Asia, Hikmet Ersek, CEO, Western Union said, “More global brands are turning to Western Union for cross-border money transfer solutions that provide their customers the ability to transfer money quickly and reliably to almost anywhere in the world. The expansion of our open platform initiative into Asia with leading financial institutions is a decisive step towards the execution of our strategy to tap into incremental growth opportunities.”

KYODAI Remittance and Hanpass join a growing group of leading global and national brands that have partnered with Western Union to expand or enhance cross-border money transfer and payment capabilities for their customers. Other platform partnerships include:

• Kenya’s leading mobile network operator Safaricom enables its over 23 million largely unbanked M-PESA mobile wallet users to transfer money globally from their wallets.
• Korea’s leading bank KEB Hana Bank enables its foreign national customers to move money from its app across the world through Western Union.
• Russia’s major bank, Sberbank, allows its over 50 million customers to send money from its app to the world.
• Saudi Telecom’s STC Pay allows its 2.5 million app users to send money from its app to the world.

These collaborations with KYODAI Remittance and Hanpass are live today with payout functionality available immediately.

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*Payout at Western Union Agent locations

About Western Union

The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU) is a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement. Our omnichannel platform connects the digital and physical worlds and makes it possible for consumers and businesses to send and receive money and make payments with speed, ease, and reliability. As of June 30, 2019, our network included over 550,000 retail agent locations offering Western Union, Vigo or Orlandi Valuta branded services in more than 200 countries and territories, with the capability to send money to billions of accounts. Additionally, westernunion.com, our fastest growing channel in 2018, is available in more than 70 countries, plus additional territories, to move money around the world. With our global reach, Western Union moves money for better, connecting family, friends and businesses to enable financial inclusion and support economic growth. For more information, visit www.westernunion.com.

About Kyodai

Kyodai Remittance is the brand name of Unidos. Co, Ltd. Unidos was established in 2000 to support home money transfer for the Peruvian community in Japan. Under the Funds Settlement Act in 2010, Unidos was registered as a money transfer company (Registration: Money Transfer Agent Kanto Regional Financial Bureau 00004) and started the service “KYODAI REMITTANCE” for all nationalities in Japan to all destinations in the world.

Since then, Unidos has provided a fast and safe remittance service to customers built around confidence, respect, know-how and experience. Unidos’ greatly diversified international staff communicate directly to each community in its own language and demonstrate a key understanding of differing cultures.

The company’s headquarters are in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. A face-to-face remittance service is provided in 18 locations in Japan so far.

About Hanpass

Hanpass is a leading Korean fintech company providing remittance and O2O currency exchange services via mobile app services. Hanpass enables its users to safely send money across borders without going through the hassle of making local bank accounts and physically going through identification process by simply completing mobile identification process. Moreover, Hanpass differentiated itself from traditional banks using SWIFT network to wire transfer by forming strategic alliance with MTO (Money Transfer Operator) partners like Western Union, which significantly reduced the time required to send money out of the country from 3~5 days to an almost instant transfer with much lower fees. With solid industry experience and knowhow along with global financial network base, Hanpass is sprinting towards becoming a true global platform offering an effortless cross border remittance, currency exchange and cross border payment experience for customers.

Contacts

Western Union Global Communications and Social Channels

Pia De Lima, [email protected]

Western Union Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific
Karen Santos, [email protected]

This article published with permission from Business Wire