remittance

A global money transfer company MoneyGram announced the addition of three new agents in South America to its wide network: Bancolombia in Colombia; Banco de Credito in Peru, and Banco Vision in Paraguay.

With these new partners MoneyGram expands its network with 1,103 new agent locations to a total of 11,305 locations.

Western Union announced that now consumers can make direct transfers to the the mobile “wallets” of Safaricom M-PESA subscribers in Kenya from 45 countries and territories.

“We are pleased to extend our service with Safaricom, and we look forward to adding additional functionality for M-PESA users in the near future,” said David Yates, Executive Vice President and President, Business Development and Innovation, Western Union.

MoneyGram International has partnered with Visa to launch MoneyGram's first cash-to-Visa account program for remittances from the United States to Mexico.

Under the program consumers will be able to use any of the 35,000 MoneyGram locations in the U.S. to quickly and reliably send funds directly to eligible Visa accounts in Mexico. Recipients in Mexico receive the funds directly to their Visa credit, debit, or prepaid accounts. Then they can withdraw the cash from Visa's global network of millions of merchant acceptance locations and ATMs.

VoiceCash in alliance with blau Mobilfunk has introduced the first prepaid card for electronic payment transactions in Germany - the blauworld PREPAID MasterCard - which also can be used to assign money worldwide. In a cooperation with Lekkerland Deutschland the blauworld PREPAID MasterCard will be available at more than 6,000 points of sale, kiosks and fuel stations nationwide.

Global money transfer services company Coinstar has signed an agreement with state owned bank of Philippines Land Bank to develop remittances business from Italy.

MoneyGram International and State Savings Bank of Russian Federation (Sberbank) announced that now 8,000 bank branches will begin offering MoneyGram’s international money transfer service throughout Russia. Launching the service with 8,000 new locations in one day is a significant technological and business breakthrough and is a first for an agent of this magnitude.

The Western Union Company and EnStream LP announced that the Western Union® international money transfer service is available through the Zoompass Mobile Wallet Application.

Earlier in September the two companies announced their strategic alliance to enable 23 million Canadian mobile subscribers to send Western Union Money Transfer® transactions from their mobile phones to over 200 countries and territories worldwide, through the Zoompass Wallet.

A provider of global payment services Western Union Company announced the rebranding of its international business payments service into Western Union Business Solutions.

Previously the service was offered under the Custom House name. Western Union acquired Custom House, which provides international business payments and foreign-exchange solutions to small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), last year. With the rebranding of the service, Western Union will cease using the Custom House brand.

The Western Union Company announced that it had been granted license approvals from the Brazilian Central Bank and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to operate a commercial bank and foreign exchange brokerage firm in Brazil.

Effective immediately, the license allows Western Union® to offer the Western Union® Money TransferSM services directly to consumers in Brazil and to introduce new financial services, including domestic money transfers, consumer bill payments and prepaid cards.

MoneyGram International has added three new agents to its network in Paraguay. The new agent partners include Banco Familiar, Cambios Chaco and Multicambios.

Banco Familiar is a leading consumer bank in Paraguay, and has one of the largest banking branch networks in the country. Cambios Chaco, with 20 locations, and Multicambios with 30 branches - the most in the country - are experienced foreign exchange agencies. Banco Familiar and Cambios Chaco were formerly agents of MoneyGram's main competitor and now are offering MoneyGram services.

A global payment services company the Western Union has partnered with Family dollar Inc to provide the Western Union® goCASHSM service, a new U.S. in-lane money transfer service from Western Union, across 6,500 Family Dollar store locations.

MoneyGram has added the Savings Bank of the Russian Federation (Sberbank) to its remittances network. Now Sberbank, the oldest and largest bank in Russia as well as Eastern Europe, will be MoneyGram’s largest agent in the region. Initially, the bank will provide MoneyGram services in over 7,000 locations across the country.

A global payment services provider Western Union has gained a registration to operate international money-transfer services under Japan's new Act Concerning Settlement of Funds, which allows non-banks to conduct money-transfer services.

Equity Bank and Safaricom have launched a new service to let consumers transfer money from and to their M-PESA accounts via their mobile phones. The newly introduced bank account dubbed M-KESHO allows customers to make remittances with their handsets while enjoying other benefits of bank accounts.

A remittance services leader the Western Union Company with Fifth Third Bank jointly announced that they have completed the rollout of Western Union global money-transfer service at more than 1,300 Fifth Third banking center locations in 12 states.