The Challenge:
With the demand for online services growing in the finance industry, global payment services provider, Western Union Business Solutions*, saw an opportunity to offer its financial institution partners (including mutual banks) a simple, effective and seamless international payments solution within their own internet banking environments.
“If they (financial institutions) don’t have foreign exchange online through internet banking, then there is a good chance that their members/customers would look to alternative places to sign-up to these services, whether with other foreign exchange providers, or the large banks,” said Hayden Scown, Director of Verticals (Australia & New Zealand), Western Union Business Solutions.
Western Union Business Solutions began work with technology companies, including Experteq, to develop an innovative solution that would establish a secure self-service platform giving users complete 24/7 access for incoming and outgoing foreign exchange transfers.
Experteq Solution:
experteq’s highly experienced team were chosen for this project not only for their extensive and trusted history with Western Union Business Solutions’ core customer base of financial institutions, but also their holistic method, ensuring business success.
“Experteq are a well-connected team who were very easy to work with and were an integral part of being able to provide this solution,” said Mr. Scown.
experteq’s seamless design equipped Western Union Business Solutions with a compliant and smart international payments platform to take to their market. The platform eliminated the need for financial institutions to develop their own costly and complex platforms, and instead supported their existing systems, while supplying members/customers with an extended service offerings experience, with the introduction of online foreign exchange capabilities.
The Outcomes:
The platform has been transformational to business by instigating significant monthly growth for financial institutions who have adopted the solution and, for some, triggering double digit results month-on-month in early stage implementation.
With a significant proportion of transactions on this platform occurring between 7pm and 7am, these financial institutions have captured transactions that may have previously been managed by a major bank or other alternative foreign exchange providers.
These outcomes have let to the possibility of further collaborative opportunities between Western Union Business Solutions and Experteq in the near future. “We would like to explore other avenues that we could partner in,” said Mr. Scown.
*Western Union Business Solutions is a division of The Western Union Company. In Australia, Western Union Business Solutions (Australia) Pty Limited (ABN 24 150 129 749 and AFSL 404092) collaborates with financial institutions (including mutual banks, credit unions and building societies) to fulfill certain foreign exchange and payment services.
