EnStream, which created the Zoompass Mobile Wallet, will let Zoompass users in Canada use the service. The service is set to begin later this year.

“We are expanding our options for people to send and receive money how, where and when they want,” said Kristin Kelly, director of marketplace communications at Western Union, Denver.

“We are able to leverage our core money-transfer processing hub to enable people to send money online with a credit or debit card, online directly from their bank accounts, or via a mobile phone – and we can extend these electronic channels to the receiver as well,” she said. “Mobile Money Transfer is a large part of this strategy.

“In many parts of the world, people don’t have the access to banks, ATMs, credit cards that we do here in the U.S., so tying a mobile phone to an account of some sort – prepaid card, bank account – essentially brings the bank to them.”

Western Union provides consumers and businesses ways to send and receive money around the world, as well as send payments and purchase money orders.  

EnStream is a mobile-commerce joint venture company owned by Bell Canada, Rogers Communications and TELUS Corp.

Zoompass lets Canadians send, receive and request digital currency within Canada using their handsets.

Money transfers
Western Union will begin testing the service and will roll out a pilot later this year.

Zoompass users will be able to send mobile-to-mobile transactions to subscribers of carriers with whom Western Union has launched the Mobile Money Transfer service.

Users can send and receive money via the Zoompass wallet application for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android devices.

“For this particular agreement, the target demographic is anyone in Canada who sends money – either within Canada or across borders,” Ms. Kelly said. “This deal, once we begin offering services, will allow them a convenient new way to send money.

“The target demographic also is the receiver,” she said.

“Once we begin offering services, Zoompass subscribers can send money from their mobile phones for payout in cash in 200-plus countries in territories at a Western Union location or to the subscriber of another mobile phone company with whom we have an agreement – at this point, Globe Telecom and Smart Communications in the Philippines.” 

Once Western Union begins offering services later this year, it plans to implement a full marketing campaign in Canada in coordination with EnStream, per Ms. Kelly.

“We have a number of other deals in the pipeline, but we cannot divulge details on them at this point,” Ms. Kelly said. “We do have an investor meeting on Sept. 30 in New York and will reveal some additional metrics at that time.”

Final Take