Visa and Western Union Agree Payments Alliance

Visa has announced a strategic agreement with Western Union that will see Western Union implement Visa Direct in an effort to bring speed and transparency to the process of sending money around the world. Visa says that the collaboration reinforces its commitment to modernise how payments are made around the world.

Once Western Union’s implementation of Visa Direct is live, Western Union will be able to offer customers an expedited remittance service onto cards with more transparency and an enhanced user experience for both senders and receivers. This expanded service is intended to make cross border payments more reliable and efficient than ever before.

In 2018, Western Union completed more than 800 million transactions for business and consumer clients. In addition to this new collaboration, last month, Visa announced the acquisition of control of Earthport, a company that provides cross-border payment services. The acquisition of Earthport is an extension of Visa’s overall cross-border strategy that’s complementary to Visa Direct and its existing partnerships.