Western Union Co. WU will soon be launching digital kiosks in 300 WHSmith high street stores, in an effort to expand its digital money transfer platform.
Western Union will activate Western Union Money Transfer® services within WHSmith high street stores which will enable customers to simply enter their transaction details at the kiosks and then proceed to a WHSmith self-checkout to pay to transfer money.
Western Union has picked WHSmith, which has a huge presence in the U.K. and is categorized as one of the most popular booksellers, stationers and newsagents. The tie up with WHSmith will provide Western Union with a ready market of customers in more than 1,300 stores of the former, with almost one million people visiting a store every day.
Western Union Digital ($250 million of revenues, or 4.5% of total in 2014) includes westernunion.com (C2C and C2B) and mobile money transfer under the company’s electronic channels. Western Union’s digital service is available in 25 countries. Its self service kiosks add up to 100,000 while about 50% of western union.com users transfer through mobile devices.
Management remains focused on growing the electronic channel which constitutes 7% of the company’s total revenue. As per management, the digital remittance industry is growing at 4–5 times the overall industry, which is expected to grow by 4–5% in the coming years, according to World Bank. Despite growth in digital business, the company’s core money transfer business is unlikely to suffer much since more than 80% of its online customers are new.
While Western Union carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), outperformers in the financial sector include Global Payments Inc. GPN, Green Dot Corporation GDOT and Total System Services, Inc. TSS all the stocks carry a Zacks Rank # 2 (Buy).
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