Western Union announces WesternUnion.ru for Russian market

Western Union, a leading provider of global payment solutions has announced recently that they are extending the reach of their services, and have launched a transactional website intended for the Russian market.

WesternUnion.ru will allow users in Russia to send Western Union money transfer transactions to anyone who uses the service. The new service will also allow the sending of funds to any of the 500,000 physical locations spread worldwide in 200 countries, with the option to deposit funds directly into the receiver’s bank account.

“Western Union continues to grow its online transactional network and increase consumer access to our services worldwide,” Khalid Fellahi, senior vice-president and general manager of Western Union Digital added in a press release on the new service.

Western Union partnered with Moscomprivatebank (the Russian extension of PrivateBank) for the infrastructure needed to cater to the Russian market.

Western Union might face stiff competition from long standing services like, Yandex.ru, who are the leading providers of online money transfers in Russia. The Russian market is a hard market to penetrate, however, due to their global scale, and with more options for worldwide transfers, we do expect to see Western Union’s new Russian offering to be successful.