Western Union Ventures executive vice president, chief marketing officer and president Diane Scott said that Western Union is changing quickly and it is leading the way in bringing international remittances to mobile subscribers around the globe.
"Our network of nearly half a million locations, our experience in moving money across borders, and our relationships with the world’s most successful mobile operators such as MTN, ideally position us to introduce many people to cross-border financial services," Scott said.
The service facilitates MTN’s mobile money transfer service from Western Union which allows more than 2 million customers in Uganda to add funds to their accounts that were sent through Western Union’s system.
Consumers can send their funds across the globe either in-person at 450,000 Western Union Agent locations in 200 countries and territories or from Western Union’s website in 22 countries or directly from a bank account in select countries.
The receiver of the funds will have to select ‘pull’ the transaction into a MTN Mobile Money account.
Western Union and MTN will provide 9,000 branded mobile ‘Yellow Phones’ to Uganda’s customers and the receiver of phones will have to an an active MTN Mobile Money account or sign up for a new account.
After the dployment of mobile money transfer in Uganda, MTN and Western Union have plans to introduce the service in other countries where Mobile Money is offered, and where regulation permits international remittance, said the firm.
