Western Union Co. has introduced a mobile Web version of its foreign-exchange payment service that enables small and midsize businesses with international ties to conduct transactions using smartphones, the company announced March 2.
Mobile access to the payment service is available in countries where Western Union does business through its Business Solutions division. Those countries include Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States.
“Market volatility is significant in so many regions around the world that currencies are always moving,” Brian Harris, the division’s vice president of marketing and product management, tells PaymentsSource “This gives businesses an opportunity to make payments whenever they want and lock in a rate on the go.”
Western Union plans to extend the service to more European countries, Harris says. The service currently supports more than 140 currencies.
Harris singled out the wine and spirits industry as a particular business segment that could find the mobile service useful because it often deals with international imports. “If many of the products they are bringing in have a foreign-exchange component to it, they want to be able to take advantage of those [rates] when they are in their favor,” Harris says.
The mobile service ties into Western Union’s online offering, Harris says. A user’s settings automatically carry over from the online portal. Recipient information is already present, as are the business’ bank accounts used to deduct payments.
Users have 30 seconds to take advantage of a locked in foreign exchange rate, which Harris says often changes by the second or minute. Once the rate is set, users may initiate the payment.
Western Union decided against using a downloadable smartphone application because industry research suggested mobile Web access is a simpler process, Harris says. Access to the service is “just a link to a mobile-friendly interface into an existing account they already have with Western Union,” he adds.
Business executives increasingly are demanding the mobile access Western Union is now offering, according to Aite Group research director Christine Barry. “Businesses in general are really expecting technologies to match the patterns in their lives, and with mobile they are obviously taking them everywhere they go,” she says.
An October Aite Web survey involving 319 treasury executives worldwide found that 32% expressed a willingness to use a mobile device for advanced banking capabilities. “I would include Western Union’s offering under that category,” Barry says.
The respondents believed the perceived benefits of this capability included any time, anywhere access to banking information (39%) and the ability to make immediate decisions (38%).
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