Western Union expands global real-time payments into select bank accounts and wallets now in 50 countries. The goal is to have 100 countries for real-time capabilities by the end of 2020.

Western Union announced that now customers have the choice of moving funds globally, with the company’s expanded capability to send cross-border, cross-currency money transfers and payments real-time to 50 countries when paid into select banks and digital wallets.

„The expansion has been fast-tracked since the beginning of this year with the goal of assessing as many as 100 countries for real-time capabilities by the end of 2020.”, according to the press release.

Western Union’s global network now includes more than four billion bank account and wallets, the company said.

Last month, Western Union announced the expansion of its digital money transfer services, the fastest-growing part of its business in 2019, to more than 75 countries. The Company’s digital services capture all the top 20 of the world’s primary remittance-sending countries ranked by the World Bank. Similarly, the Company’s global bank account and wallet payout network, along with in-minutes payout capability to select bank accounts and wallets, covers most of the world’s major remittance-receiving countries.

Western Union’s consumer-to-consumer money in-minutes cross-border payments capability is now active when sending to select banks or digital wallet providers in 50 countries: Austria, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, China, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Denmark, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malawi, Mexico, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Portugal, Rwanda, Senegal, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Western Union’s recently announced open-platform strategy is allowing the company to innovatively connect the digital and physical worlds of money while helping leading organizations scale their services globally. The company offers banks and other payment providers a portfolio of application programming interfaces (APIs) to integrate with its cross-border, cross-current money movement platform with the added benefit of Western Union’s treasury management, reconciliation, and global compliance capabilities.