Supporting cost-effective money transfers for customers

For Western Union and their customers, every payment matters. 

As one of the world’s leading money transfer providers, Western Union helps customers move money across borders quickly and securely – whether supporting family overseas, paying for urgent expenses, or managing international financial commitments. 

In Australia, the business processes a significant volume of debit card payments both in store and online, with customers increasingly choosing digital channels including apps, websites and digital wallets to send money internationally. 

With large transaction values and highly competitive margins, keeping payment acceptance costs low is critical to delivering value for customers. That’s where eftpos has played an important role. 

A growing focus on online payments 

Western Union’s Australian business has seen continued growth in card-not-present and digital wallet transactions as more customers shift to online and digital payment experiences. 

As a money transfer provider, Western Union is also a merchant – accepting payments from customers to facilitate international transfers. That makes delivering efficient, reliable and seamless payment experiences an important part of the customer journey. 

"People pay us to send money overseas, and increasingly they’re doing that online – through our app, website, card on file experiences, and digital wallets. As customer expectations continue to evolve across ecommerce and digital channels, it’s important that we continue optimising the payment experience while keeping it secure, reliable, and cost-effective for customers.”

Alexi Paxinos, Country Director, Australia at Western Union

Reducing payment acceptance costs through eftpos 

Western Union has been able to optimise debit card payments for eligible in-store and online transactions using Merchant Choice Routing (MCR) (or Least-cost Routing - LCR) to eftpos. Merchant Choice Routing allows businesses to choose which network processes a debit card payment, typically the lowest-cost option available. 

This has helped lower debit card payment acceptance costs across parts of the business’s payment flows. 

For Western Union, reducing cost of acceptance is particularly important given the relatively large size of many international money transfers. 

“We operate in a highly competitive market, so we can’t simply absorb high acceptance costs,” Alexi said. 

“If I’m transferring $1,000 and it costs me $20 to accept the transaction, and I’ve only got a small margin overall, the economics become very challenging.”  

While Western Union cannot disclose specific figures, the business says the efficiencies achieved through eftpos have delivered meaningful savings. 

Importantly, those efficiencies support Western Union’s ability to maintain competitive pricing for customers sending money internationally. 

Balancing customer experience and security 

For a global money transfer provider, payment security and fraud prevention remain critical considerations. 

Western Union says balancing customer convenience with the right levels of payment security is an important part of delivering trusted services. 

“There’s always a balance to strike,” Alexi said.

“As a money services business, some friction is necessary to help prevent fraud, scams and misuse of the system – while still providing customers with fast and reliable experiences.” 

At the same time, Western Union says strong payment performance remains essential. 

“Reliable authorisation rates are incredibly important for our business, and our experience with eftpos has been positive,” Alexi said. 

Supporting innovation in Australian payments 

Western Union says working with eftpos has helped the business continue evolving its payment experiences locally while supporting more efficient online payment processing. 

For Western Union, the focus remains on providing secure, efficient and competitive money transfer services for customers across Australia. 

As digital payments continue to evolve, the business sees payment optimisation and customer-centric experiences remaining key priorities into the future.