What are the demographics of Western Union users sending money from the U.S. to Asia, and is the experience smooth or painful for senders and recipients?
Cross-Border Payments
Asked by Question Bot12/Oct/20151 answer
1 Answer
F
Faisal Khan
Answered 12/Oct/2015
The bulk of US transactions is worker's remittances (or home remittances). Money sent back home for family maintenance. No one knows for sure, as WU does not provide a break down.
Typically the average transfer hovers around the US$ 200-US$500 bracket mark.
The demographics of the users, transferring money back home is predominantly blue-collar workers. The experience is instant for them in most cases, i.e. they will go to a WU Agent, book up the transaction, get the MTCN, and relay the same to their relative via SMS/Chat. In some cases, the relative is already waiting at the WU Agent outlet in the recipient country and can confirm the transaction in about 10 minutes. Speed, needless to say, costs both the remitter and the recipient.
In some countries, if the transaction is a first time transaction, then additional paperwork is required (in the case of South Africa for example) where it can literally take 4-5 days to get the remittance the first time around, as registration has to be done as per the South African regulator's rules.
The experience for most part is good and smooth for both the Sender & Receiver.
Most importantly, the experience is uniform.
You can walk into any WU outlet in the work, and the uniformity remains. The industry now even uses their acronym MTC (Money Transfer Control Number) like we use the word Xerox or Kleenex.
As WU probably has the best over view of the remittance market (a fact that World Bank acknowledges that the best intelligence in the world on Remittance & Money Transfer patterns lies with WU), they have evolved and streamlined their processes to make it as efficient as it can be, without causing confusing ripples amongst the 500,000+ WU Agents worldwide.
Typically the average transfer hovers around the US$ 200-US$500 bracket mark.
The demographics of the users, transferring money back home is predominantly blue-collar workers. The experience is instant for them in most cases, i.e. they will go to a WU Agent, book up the transaction, get the MTCN, and relay the same to their relative via SMS/Chat. In some cases, the relative is already waiting at the WU Agent outlet in the recipient country and can confirm the transaction in about 10 minutes. Speed, needless to say, costs both the remitter and the recipient.
In some countries, if the transaction is a first time transaction, then additional paperwork is required (in the case of South Africa for example) where it can literally take 4-5 days to get the remittance the first time around, as registration has to be done as per the South African regulator's rules.
The experience for most part is good and smooth for both the Sender & Receiver.
Most importantly, the experience is uniform.
You can walk into any WU outlet in the work, and the uniformity remains. The industry now even uses their acronym MTC (Money Transfer Control Number) like we use the word Xerox or Kleenex.
As WU probably has the best over view of the remittance market (a fact that World Bank acknowledges that the best intelligence in the world on Remittance & Money Transfer patterns lies with WU), they have evolved and streamlined their processes to make it as efficient as it can be, without causing confusing ripples amongst the 500,000+ WU Agents worldwide.