Western Union launches bill presentment solution for smartphones

Johannesburg, 26 Jun 2012

The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU), a leader in global payment services, today announced the release of an enhancement to its Western Union Speedpay service, designed to help billers meet growing consumer demand to receive electronic bills through smartphones and mobile devices. The enhancement also allows consumers to pay their bills directly from their mobile devices with just one click.

The enhancement was developed with eBill presentment specialist, Striata, and operates across multiple platforms and devices, including Android, BlackBerry, iPhone and iPad.

“Our Western Union Payments Money Mindset Index shows that consumers, whose use of mobile devices is outpacing all other media, are looking for a wider range of payment options from billers,” David Shapiro, senior vice-president, Payments, Western Union, said.

“Western Union is dedicated to providing billers with robust bill pay solutions, while giving consumers a variety of user-friendly options to receive and pay their bills.” One-third of Americans own a smartphone of some kind, according to Pew Research, with nearly 40% using their smartphones for online banking*.

Helping billers better serve their customers

The Western Union Speedpay eBill payment and presentment (EBPP) solution helps billers reach consumers who prefer to access their e-mail from their mobile devices. The enhanced solution allows consumers to receive gas, water, electric, mortgage, insurance and other bills as a simple, secure e-mail attachment that can be opened with just one click. Consumers also enjoy the convenience, reliability and 24-hour access to one-click bill payment processing.

“E-mail delivery of bills is ideally suited to the mobile channel. Through an encrypted attachment, recipients are able to open, view and pay their electronic bills on any e-mail-capable mobile device or tablet, without the need to download any application or software - it's as simple as opening an e-mail attachment,” Garin Toren, Striata, chief operating officer, said.

*Pew Research Center, “Americans and their cellphones,” 15 August 2011, p. 10

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Western Union

The Western Union Company is a leader in global payment services. Together with its Vigo, Orlandi Valuta, Pago Facil and Western Union Business Solutions branded payment services, Western Union provides consumers and businesses with fast, reliable and convenient ways to send and receive money around the world, to send payments and to purchase money orders. As of 24 April 2012, the Western Union, Vigo and Orlandi Valuta branded services were offered through a combined network of approximately 500 000 agent locations in 200 countries and territories. In 2011, the Western Union Company completed 226 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, moving $81 billion of principal between consumers, and completed 425 million business payments. www.westernunion.com

Striata

Striata unlocks the power of e-mail and mobile messaging. The company's electronic delivery solutions dramatically increase customer adoption of paperless bills, statements, policies, marketing and other high-volume system-generated documents. The world's largest financial services, utility, insurance, retail and telecommunications companies achieve unrivalled results by replacing print and mail with Striata's interactive electronic documents and transactional messages. Striata's enterprise platform, strategy and support services drive significant paper suppression, deliver ongoing cost savings, accelerate payments, enhance the customer experience and enable regulatory compliance. The company's comprehensive solutions expand the digital dialogue through personalised customer life cycle messaging, retail receipts, notifications and alerts. A global paperless communications specialist with over a decade of experience, Striata has operations in New York, London, Brussels, Johannesburg, Hong Kong and Sydney, and partners in North and South America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. www.striata.com

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Western Union launches bill presentment solution for smartphones

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Helping billers better serve their customers