Western Union extends special rate to other states

Western Union, a leading provider of money transfer services worldwide, today announced a special rate of 15 dirhams (about Rs 175) for transferring money up to 8,500 dirhams (about Rs 98,260) across the country.

Announcing the special rate at a press conference here today, Anil Kapur, managing director (South Asia), said that the company had introduced the special package only for Kerala in April on an experimental basis.

"From today onwards we extend this facility to the entire nation," he said.

Initially, Kerala was chosen for launching the scheme because of its large NRI population and average annual receipts of US $4 billion.

According to him, India has a total market size of US $23 billion on an annualised basis with Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Punjab being the largest contributors.

The company has also announced its tie-up with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) through its principal agent, AFL, to provide money transfer services in Kerala. The company has signed a similar agreement with BPCL and HPCL for providing the facility.

He said Western Union was planning to extend the service through Kisan Seva Kenrda in other states also. Kapur added that the company had started 36,000 money transfer locations in India by the end of last month.

Western Union is looking at India and China as the most prospective markets across Asia.

The company has tied up with 32 banks in India extending the service to 11,000 branches on a pan-India basis.

As many as 8,500 post offices have been included in the network of Western Union in around 4,000 towns.