(7 July 2011 – Global) The world’s biggest money transfer firm, Western Union has bought Travelex Global Business Payments from Travelex for £606 million (A$906 million).Western Union chief executive Hikmet Ersek said that adding Travelex Global Business Payments provides the bank with immediate scale.
‘We are serving again here the under-served. These are small importers or exporters which have difficulties doing cross-border payments.’
Travelex chief executive Peter Jackson said the deal was a transformational one, taking the company back to its roots in servicing its 30 million retail customers.
Travelex will now focus on the provision of cash and pre-paid cards and its fast-growing international consumer payments.
For Western Union, the transaction enables the Colorado-based company to expand further into business-to-business international payments.