Western Union Launches Platform for Global Product Development (March 21, 2013)
March 21, 2013
Western Union Co. continues to expand its prepaid offerings globally and yesterday announced the rollout of its Global Share platform, which the company says will enable it to work more easily with partner companies that offer complementary products and services. The platform will facilitate better collaboration and improve products’ speed to market, according to the Littleton, Colo.-based company.
“[The Global Share platform] will allow Western Union and our partner client companies to form deeper relationships with consumers than either might have [independently],” Mike Hafer, senior vice president of global stored value at Western Union, tells Paybefore. “The new platform is a way to enable these partner clients to interact with our core services and assets in a simpler, faster and more flexible way. It also brings to the partner client and to the end consumer other [Western Union] capabilities, for example AML compliance expertise.”
For example, Access Prepaid Worldwide, a MasterCard subsidiary, and Western Union are developing Western Union-branded multicurrency travel cards in several countries. With these accounts, travelers can load funds at select Western Union agent locations worldwide and manage their money in multiple currencies. What’s more, Western Union and Advent Financial are offering U.S. government tax disbursements on prepaid cards at more than 5,000 locations in 45 states.
Western Union also announced partnerships with four additional companies: co-branded reloadable remittance card accounts with AirPak in Central America; a stored value wallet tied to a prepaid card with Credencial in Chile; the “WU WALLET” multipurpose, multicurrency card with Jade Payments in the UAE; and an open-loop prepaid card for Chinese travelers coming to the U.S. with mFunds in the U.S.
