Partnership between La Banque Postale and Western Union
- La Banque Postale account holders will be able to perform online funds transfers to Western Union POSs starting mid-November 2011.
- The delivered funds can be withdrawn in cash right after they have been sent. This initiative mostly addresses the expectations of customers with abroad-based relatives located in nonbanked or underbanked regions.
- funds transfer services are quite popular: eight million operations were performed in 2010 for 2.5 billion euros.
- This initiative is in line with La Banque Postale’s historical positioning in favour of fragile populations.
- Western Union already proposes these kinds of online services. This agreement fits in the larger frame of their long-lasting partnership (dating back from 2006); 60% of the post offices now distribute Western Union offers. This bridge-building was further confirmed in April 2011 with a cobranded card (see April 2011 Insight).
- La Banque Postale is providing the users with a new distribution channel, thus highlighting the expansion of Western Union’s worldwide network. With the Account-Based Money Transfer, credit transfers are fast and trustworthy, even to countries using non-convertible currencies. This is an additional asset, including for traditional customers, as they often have to make do with long delays (one week or more) for credit transfers to Vietnam, for instance.