Below is an excerpt from LEADERS Magazine’s interview with Joy Miller.
Purpose-Powered Money Movement
How critical is purpose to Western Union’s culture?
Purpose is woven into the fabric of Western Union. We are one of the few financial institutions that has a truly global network. We have the largest digital remittance business in the world, but what differentiates us is the ability to transact digitally or in cash to move money which helps connect customers even in remote parts of the world to the global economy.
Today, the scale and impact of global remittances is massive, totaling more than three times total foreign direct investment. There are countries around the world where remittances provide 10 to 20 percent of GDP. Our focus on sending money across the world so that people can pay for things like education and healthcare provides strong motivation to our workforce.
That said, our purpose is shifting somewhat because we’ve evolved to become much more than a remittance company. We’re no longer just focused on people sending money around the world as a consumer-to-consumer business, and we are opening up our platform, offering it to corporations and other entities, so that they can send money globally. For example, Amazon is a fairly recent partner of ours. With that partnership, people in a number of middle-income and developing markets can use Western Union to pay for Amazon purchases in local currency, taking advantage of the benefits that come with access to this huge supply of goods. This really opens economies to the benefits of e-commerce.
We are still very focused on enabling our customers to participate in the global economy, yet our purpose is evolving as our business model evolves.
Continue to LEADERS Magazine to read the full interview.
