western union digital transformation

Today, structured and semi-structured data can easily coincide. Governments pay close attention to cross-border money transfers, and heavily regulate these services to prevent fraud, tax evasion, and other criminal activities. Policy . We do that both in-line, so you as a manager go and visit your own organization, but also visit other functions. Recipients can choose to pick up the sent money at a Western Union location, or send the money to a digital wallet or bank account. Now that these pilots are winding down, its been easy to get the support across the organization to find the resources necessary to establish teams that can scale it out in different areas across the company. After the catastrophic explosion in Lebanon in 2020, the two companies worked together to build data pipelines to help those affected by the incident and provide support to agents in the area. As a company, Western Union is in the middle of a transformational moment. In just 11 months, we delivered a full-service digital banking experience that expands our relationship with customers.. I have successfully directed virtual teams working on Mastercard integrations, Western Union and MoneyGram. Us, Terms With a strong base of over 4 million customers and an established regional brand in the fast-growing digital wallet market, Western Union believes that stc pay is poised to experience strong growth in the future. Reframe blockchain from a threat to an opportunity, by creating a new autonomous unit. How Western Union Became a Global Digital Front-Runner for Cross-Border Payments Money By Jay Jaffin, Head of Global Digital, Western Union May 24, 2021. Beyond the public health crisis, COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on personal finances, causing poverty levels and inequality to rise globally. Infosys accelerated Western Union's digital transformation by harmonizing agent operations, implementing billing and collection standards, enabling modular growth, accelerating new product launches, enabling digital on-demand procedures, designing global accounting solutions based on one single template, supporting highly complex pricing and multiple business models, and massive management processes as a strategic technology partner. Western Union offers digital transactions in 70 countries to move money around the world. You have to recognise that youre taking a massive journey as a company because it has always relied on data centres. Western Union has innovated before. We're making content recommendations better for thousands of readers. Transformation, Cyber Digital transformation starts with people, which is a useful reminder that . The role of CDO needs to encompass more than data management and data governance, more than even enabling the pipeline and managing the environments. WU's platform provides seamless cross-border flows, and its leading global financial network bridges more than 200 countries and territories and over 130 currencies. Technology powers the data economy. Revenue from Western Union's digital money transfer services spiked from $600 million in 2019 to over $850 million in 2020. Watch this tech inequality series featuring scholars, practitioners, & activists, Sign up for the Digital Initiative Newsletter. Business Unit Represents Approximately 7% of Company Revenue Divestiture Will Support Western Union's Strategic Focus on its Global Cross-Border Payments Platform and Digital Capabilities The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU), a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments, together with Goldfinch Partners, LLC ("Goldfinch"), a private equity firm investing in . Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down. <br><br>My Leadership Philosophy<br><br>I am an . In Austria our employees have put in place numerous initiatives such as German courses and mentoring programs, and we celebrated in March the first anniversary of SEED, a project supported by the Western Union Foundation in collaboration with the Austrian Ministry of Education and Teach for Austria Alumni Association. In the past five years, theres been a leveling across applications and data. Western Uniona global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and paymentsis driving a company-wide transformation, which includes migrating its infrastructure from on-prem to the Cloud. The Baupost Group is a $31 billion Boston-based investment firm. Our App has grown to become one of the industrys most widely used international money transfer apps and a Top 20 finance app in the App Store., Not at all. He shares his views on digital transformation and economic opportunities for all. Board Committees. Western Union's investment in India is part of a broader fintech and innovation strategy that is driving the company's digital transformation. It works with Talend to streamline data movement in compliance with GDPR across financial, reconciliation, auditing and trading partners. Poland followed later in 2022, while plans are at hand to launch Italy by the end of the year. Leaders across many industries and companies of all sizes report that one of their biggest challenges is siloed data. His career span includes working with organizations like FIS, Western Union, HCL Technologies, CGI, Mahindra Satyam and iGate Global Solutions. Business Unit Represents Approximately 7% of Company Revenue . Today, WU.com is available in 40 countries, with mobile apps in 18 of them. So, constant iteration and rapid delivery are crucial. The international roll-out continues to other countries at pace. Western Union's cross-functional tech teams pushed out expanded digital options and real-time visibility on the status of its retail locations worldwide. Cole heads the 169-year-old company's digital transformation efforts, including the design and development of the software powering those consumer-facing platforms. The executive team has done a great job of making it really clear across the company that this is something thats expected of you. There are 13 of these practices, and thats really how were assessing success with the transformation across the organization. This seems to be a typical BSSE case in which it is hard for the incumbent to disrupt its business, since the innovation may threaten the current profitable business. Singh is a proponent for a Central Bank Digital Currency, which he says is significantly different to the digital assets such as BitCoin and Ethereum, which can fluctuate wildly in value over short periods of time. Though its too early for results, the response from consumers has been positive, he says. What are the biggest lessons you learned? We started function by function, looking at individual deployments across our different groups in the company. Industry experts were also drafted in to create the army that was required for this technology mission. Nov 2011 - Present11 years 5 months. Similarly, Western Union's ethos is based on empowering the aspiring populations of the world with accessible financial tools to improve the lives of their loved ones and communities. Digital transformation in Western Union must be driven from the top-down. [9]Western Union recently dipped its toes into blockchain. First, Western Unions third party agents may try to thwart any concerted moves to digital platforms, seeing such a move as a threat to existing commission revenues. Western Union also is uniquely positioned to explore blockchain applications in emerging markets by leveraging Western Unions retail footprint, regulatory compliance learning, and global brand. In 2017 SEED supported 20 projects, impacting 5,000 children and youth; we hope to support event more in 2018.. Achieving that is going to give Western Union agility, stability and resilience and allow us to focus on product development, because we know that our technology is going to sit in the cloud and take up a lot less of our time. Its time to align your banks digital transformation strategy with the entire customer lifecycle by providing a personalized omnichannel experience. arrow_forward. Western Union International Bank is licensed by the Austrian Financial Market Authority. Today customers can commence their journey on our mobile App, pay for their transaction digitally or opt to pay cash from any of our participating Western Union retail locations, use wu.com or go directly to any of the 1,200 agent locations or Western Union-owned locations in Austria[i]. However, Western Union doesnt view its established retail business as totally separate from the digital world. The strategy is also to reduce costs; on-prem infrastructure and people running it is expensive and you need back-ups of everything, especially in financial services. Behind those market-shaper practices are the lean tools and behaviors we develop and encourage. While WU is considered a global leader in their space, competitive insights and . Western Union. Although retail business declined during . Services, Consumer The CDO needs to drive digital transformation by enabling data to power product development and the company. The Data Cloud is increasingly becoming a facilitator for digital transformation initiatives, and while there are many facets to that story, our customers often tell us how three critical elements play a central role: being able to access and share live data; being able to share data without having to move it; and the ability to securely access third-party data. And when you have that, it becomes easier to have a stronger level of influence than you might otherwise expect with a small team, because everyone in the organization is clear that, whether youre working directly with the WU Way team or not, your job is to find ways for continuous improvement. Hiring experienced developers was already hard, and the skills drought got even worse with the great resignation. [1] The first transcontinental telegraph was sent on October 24, 1861, from the Chief Justice of California to President Abraham Lincoln. To ensure those approaches were safe and secure, we partnered with governmental organizations to find new and secure ways to verify customers. Western Union is to shed its Business Solutions unit, with investment firms Goldfinch and Baupost set to acquire the business for $910 million in cash. Marketing tactics evolved to attract digital customers, who have a different profile from traditional retail customers. The Western Union Way of digital transformation. Introducing the next-generation operating model, Winning with your talent-management strategy. Top retailers use AI-powered campaigns to engage their most valuable customers. We saw that our revenue and customer base didnt reflect the opportunity and size of the market.. One of the benefits that weve really seen as weve gone through these first two years of our journey is what happens when we get everyone speaking the same language. Harare Responsible for . As consumer expectations continue to evolve, digital will play an ongoing role in helping financial services brands deliver value to their customers and drive business growth. And on our website, we added new support and wayfinding tools to ensure customers could quickly and easily access information. She has extensive experience in leading strategic marketing and has worked with brands like Myntra, Arrow, and Amante. The pilots help get buy-in across the organization, and then once we have that buy-in, it provides the resources necessary to scale. Since 2008, Huawei has offered a wide and expanding range of . After exceeding expectations in 2020 despite the outbreak of COVID-19, the world's largest currency exchange service Western Union looks set to exceed US$1 billion in total annual revenues for its digital business segment in 2021 a major milestone for the company and a first in the world of digital cross-border payments.. Western Union's shift toward digital shows little sign of relenting. Its reach is staggering: present in more than 200 countries and territories, transacting in 130+ currencies, with approximately 150 million people having used Western Union to either send or receive funds over the last year. Western Union could use existing retail outlets as nodes on a land register blockchain, which could bring in new sources of revenue to those retail stores. Western Union International Banks CEO Peter Bucher firmly believes you can drive successful, innovative business while creating a better world for the community you live in. Created: 05-05-2021 - 17:15. [3] Shelly Freierman, Telegram Falls Silent Stop Era Ends Stop, NY Times, Feb. 6, 2006. Lastly, how do you see digital continuing to drive your services in the future? Thats really enabled a lot more collaboration across groups. Something we could take forward is a digital dollar, which we could make transferable all around the world with our vendors. Services, Public The reason for that is due to the huge increase in demand for our digital services as lockdowns were implemented across many different geographies. [8]David Thomas, Beyond the Hype: What Blockchain could mean for Africa, African Business Magazine, Feb. 26, 2018. Really understand the business stakeholders problem and how you can fix or enable it. They tend to be younger, they live online and they prefer to do everything there, at the touch of a button, Fellahi observes. Inclusion, Bloomberg [5] 2017 Annual ReportCEO Letter (noting Western Union has expanded its fund payout network to billions of bank accounts). Some want to go to a retail store and pay cash. One trend that has emerged as a result is the growing role of digital money transfers among people who may not otherwise use those services. & Publishing, Logistics Revenue from Western Union's digital money transfer services spiked from $600 million in 2019 to over $850 million in 2020. Experts at TCS and Western Union share the trends that are affecting digital transformation in financial services. Western Union has gained a comprehensive view of the customer while running the Data Cloud on AWS. With my work with WEF, I was lucky enough to sit around a table recently with some important people and talk about how we can take this forward. We see ourselves as becoming a FinTech that can move quickly while being sure that our infrastructure and processes allow us to work at scale. your next, Infosys Furthermore, a chain of retail outlets is expensive. Whats really nice about that is that its so visually obvious. [12]These kind of digital initiatives are good pursuits for current operational leaders, since they represent incremental or modular innovations to Western Unions existing product offerings. The relationship with Talend has enabled Western Union to help its global customer base in times of real need. [11] Western Unions footprint of retail locations gives it a worldwide laboratory for experimenting with blockchain applications. On May 17, 2018, at the Digital Assembly in Sofia, Bulgaria, the European Commission launched the Digital Agenda for the Western Balkans. Our digital-first crisis response is helping us evolve into the future. The difference with OutSystems is that we can do that fast and at scale, deploying experiences that are fast to load, reliable, and secure. . Singh also sees huge potential in the use of blockchain for specific use cases within financial services and payments, for example, helping with the Know Your Customer (KYC) process that is important to stopping money laundering and fraud and eliminating many of the checks that currently hold up cross-border payments. few clicks, you can use OutSystems to bring your visions to life. Western Union charges high fees since they need to cover rent and labor overhead. Western Union will likely face internal resistance from three sources. But theyve been hugely supportive and as weve hit milestones, such as moving significant infrastructure completely to the cloud or achieving significant savings with the Marketing Cloud, we have built that business case. The Western Union Way of digital transformation. Western Union is trying to use Blockchain as an incremental or modular innovation, when in fact it could be an architectural orradical innovation (see chart below) introducing entirely new businesses that fit well into Western Unions existing capabilities. Jaffin: Digital was critical in a few ways. Increasingly, digital technology and mobile devices play a key role in these transactions. 2021. For example, helping African countries develop official land registers could eliminate a huge barrier to investment and capital inflows (e.g., by resolving uncertain and disputed land titles). Head of Information Technology & Digital Transformation Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Oct 2015 - Present 7 years 6 months. (2013) Comparing Media Systems beyond the Western World. DENVER-(BUSINESS WIRE)-The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU), a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments, today announced that the Company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a minority stake in fast growing Saudi Digital Payments Company, or stc pay, a fully owned subsidiary of Saudi Telecom Company. Mazzaferro: Snowflake is enabling quite a bit around analytics, reporting, event triggers, and settlement across our card providers. And if Western Union doesnt embrace and transform along with those technologies, it will fade away just like the telegraph. Singh was given autonomy to mould his teams, combining the skills already at Western Union with external talent, many of which were from a consulting background, resulting in a diverse and varied team, which he says proved invaluable. Most of the customers for remittance service (e.g. - Earn My WU points. Teams that may not previously have interacted with each other are now doing floor walks with each other. Blockchain is technology that uses an open, distributed ledger to permanently verify and record transactions between two parties. This will enable the company to maintain its high . Western Union launched its digital banking app in Germany and Romania in Spring 2022, following 11 months of iterative development. During its February 2018 earnings call, CEO Hikmet Ersek announced that Western Union is experimenting with Ripple for settling transactions and for capital optimization, and is also testing Ripples native currency (XRP).[10]. Commenting on the advantages of development on OutSystems, Tom says, "We estimate that we're getting new products . Western Union built its platform by assembling a global network of third party agents. One of its most high-profile hires was Harveer Singh, who was appointed as Chief Data Architect & Global Head of Engineering and previously co-led EYs Next Generation architecture & solutions for Financial Services. Services, Data Some changes that used to take a month, we now deliver in around 48 hours.. Korea, United Digital Transformation. Africa's largest payment gateway, MFS Africa, has partnered with Western Union to enable individuals and businesses across the continent to receive money Youre expected to find ways to optimize your processes and drive value. We continue to experiment with the technology and time will tell if it offers a better alternative to traditional rails.. That allowed us to go from ten people to about 50 change agents in the first wave, which will be able to support 2,500 employees and 4,000 vendor full-time employees within two years. January 25, 2019 | Video. Digital transformation in the EUBenefitting people, the economy and the environment. Contributed to establishing Quality Assurance, Training and Documentation strategy and processes for AML Operations functions. of Use, Payment Cortex, Infosys Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Weve been able to increase the amount and frequency of relevant data we can share with our agents, and they have started to build new processes based on that. While the pace of change has been considerable, the leadership team at Western Union has been focused on implementing a large-scale technology transformation. These agents typically manage retail stores across the world, and offer Western Union money transfer services in exchange for a commission. The transformation of Western Digital to a Live Enterprise Modernization of legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications provides an opportunity for a technical upgrade as well as a transformation of the core business, according to IDC.

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