Western Union’s Self-Service Kiosk Model Named “Best New Service”

The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU), a leader in global payment services, was awarded the “Best New Service” award at the 2015 Corporate Entrepreneur Awards earlier this week for its digital self-service kiosk model—active at Walgreens locations across the United States. 

The Corporate Entrepreneur Awards—hosted by Market Gravity—recognize innovation within large businesses related to new products, services and experiences disrupting traditional industries. The “Best New Service” award celebrates a service innovation that has redefined its industry or category. 

This year, Western Union took the top spot among 33 other nominations in this category from some of North America’s largest companies, including MasterCard, Visa, AOL, United Airlines and Avis. 

The award-winning digital self-service kiosk model allows consumers to make domestic and international money transfers as well as bill payments at more than 7,800 Walgreens locations, using existing digital self-service kiosks. 

Customers can independently stage their transactions at the self-service kiosk using a photo touchscreen, and then fund those transactions via cash or pin-based debit at the register. 

The service was introduced at Walgreens without disruption to the business by integrating the money transfer and bill payments services into existing photo kiosks. By employing this innovative approach, no additional staffing or point of sale requirements were necessary. 

Western Union’s cross-border platform is a rare combination of a physical and digital network servicing 16,000 corridors across 200 countries and territories. Across its brands the company has over 500,000 retail agent locations around the world and its services are available at over 100,000 ATMs and kiosks, and including the capability to send money to millions of accounts.