Hoping to capture a greater share of the burgeoning and highly competitive market involving young Hispanic consumers, Western Union Co. is partnering with leading Hispanic-content broadcaster Telemundo Communications Group LLC to promote two MasterCard-branded reloadable prepaid cards.
Western Union designed the Telemundo prepaid card for Hispanics in the United States, while the mun2 prepaid card links to Telemundo’s mun2 channel for younger, bicultural Hispanics, the funds-transfer company noted in a May 17 announcement of the deal.
“We’re very excited to partner with Telemundo because we have a lot in common,” Victoria Lopez-Negrete, senior vice president and general manager for North America at Western Union, tells PaymentsSource.
Western Union previously has partnered with the popular Hispanic broadcaster not only for television marketing of Western Union products but also for events, such as a Mother’s Day “Love in Any Language” campaign earlier this month to promote funds transfers that included an event in Miami and considerable social-media marketing on Facebook.
The two companies are planning a comprehensive, multi-level marketing and advertising campaign that would include television ads, point-of-sale marketing, in-market events and digital marketing, particularly for the mun2 card, says Lopez-Negrete. She declined to provide details because the companies were still formulating their plans.
“Clearly, [promoting] a product like this requires us to become very close to the target consumer,” Lopez-Negrete says, noting that targeting bicultural Hispanics with social media and mobile marketing is natural fit.
And Western Union is particularly interested in the bicultural Hispanic market, she says.
“The mun2 property has very successfully carved out a value proposition for the bicultural Hispanic segment,” says Lopez-Negrete. “[The target market] is very hip. They’re online, they’re building their financial lives, and we’re excited to work with this segment because, according to the census, this segment is growing very fast.”
Two components–acquisition and reloading–will make the prepaid products successful, Lopez-Negrete contends.
Western Union and Telemundo will make the prepaid cards available online and at yet-to-be-disclosed retail locations. The companies continue to work on the design of the customer-acquisition effort, Lopez-Negrete says.
For reloading, cardholders may visit any of Western Union’s 46,000 agent locations, have their payroll deposited into the card account or transfer funds from an existing account online, says Lopez-Negrete.
Fees for the two cards include $1.95 per ATM withdrawal, 45 cents per ATM balance inquiry, $2.50 per month after 12 months of nonuse and $4.95 per account reload. Additional fees could include $5 to have a card reissued, $1 to transfer funds to the card account from a bank account, $3 for a paper statement, and charges for currency conversions.
Multicultural financial analysts are not surprised by Western Union’s efforts to target the Hispanic community with prepaid cards.
Indeed, nothing was unusual in the deal other than Telemundo cobranding the card with Western Union, a well-know service provider to the Hispanic community, says Leylha Ahuile, senior multicultural analyst at Mintel Comperemedia, a Chicago–based financial market research firm.
“When you’ve got people already doing financial transactions with the company, adding the Telemundo name to new product does make sense,” she says. “It’s also possible Western Union needs to step up its game with the Hispanic community, as other companies such as Wal-Mart are now doing the same kinds of services for the underbanked segment.”
In terms of promoting the prepaid card, she notes that “Hispanics are quite good at not wanting to live beyond their means” and are more likely to use a prepaid card that limits spending. And cards are a necessity today to make purchases, especially online, Ahuile says.
“Even if you want to buy online at Amazon, you need a card. So there are benefits to having a prepaid debit card,” she says.
Telemundo is not the first Hispanic communications company to link with a financial-services provider. Univision last year began promoting its own MasterCard-branded prepaid card over its network (
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