Western Union Guides Customers Amid Coronavirus Outbreak

The Western Union Company (NYSE:WU) has actively come forward to help its enormous customer base during the COVID-19 pandemic. The underlying intention of the company is to provide financial aid to customers on its vast network of digital channels and retail agents.

Although its retail network has more than 5,50,000 locations globally, operations in specific locations are temporarily halted due to the pandemic. As a result, Western Union is urging customers to increase digital transactions through its westernunion.com channel and the Western Union Mobile App. Increased transactions, in turn, are likely to boost the company’s digital business.

While westernunion.com can be accessed by customers across 70 countries and additional territories, its Western Union Mobile App can be availed in 40 countries.

Given an economic crisis resulting from the pandemic, Western Union urges customers to remain at home and engage in digital money transactions to help contain the virus spread. Such digital transactions can ease the money transfer process for healthcare-based amenities and other essential ones.

The financial transaction service provider has always been in a bid to boost its digital business and add customers. Revenues from its digital platform, which generates substantial businesses for Western Union, have registered a 25% rise year over year in the fourth quarter of 2019. Additionally, the westernunion.com channel has become an integral part of the company’s business and accounted for nearly 15% of total money transfer revenues in 2019.

Notably, such updates issued by Western Union also seem to restore customers’ confidence in the company. We believe that an uptick in digital transactions is likely to benefit its Consumer-to-Consumer segment, which offers money transfer transactions that can be initiated through websites and mobile devices. The segment contributed nearly 83% to the company’s top-line growth in 2019.

Backed by such a strong digital business, shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have inched up 1.7% in a year against the industry's decline of 11.1%. We believe that Western Union’s solid business is likely to retain its existing momentum in the long run.

Stocks to Consider

Some better-ranked stocks in the finance space are Cardtronics plc (NASDAQ:CATM) , EVO Payments, Inc. (NASDAQ:EVOP) and Moody's Corporation (NYSE:MCO) , each currently carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Cardtronics, EVO Payments and Moody’s surpassed estimates in the last reported quarters by 20.69%, 26.32% and 4.17%, on average, respectively.

Free: Zacks’ Single Best Stock Set to Double

Today you are invited to download our latest Special Report that reveals 5 stocks with the most potential to gain +100% or more in 2020. From those 5, Zacks Director of Research, SherazMian hand-picks one to have the most explosive upside of all.

This pioneering tech ticker had soared to all-time highs and then subsided to a price that is irresistible. Now a pending acquisition could super-charge the company’s drive past competitors in the development of true Artificial Intelligence. The earlier you get in to this stock, the greater your potential gain.

See 5 Stocks Set to Double>>