June 22, 2009; Western Union agent, Amstel train station, Amsterdam @ 10.00
Doesn't look like much of an interesting picture, I admit. But in today's world of online global banking and modern finance, a Western Union agent is a place of incredible human drama.
Western Union has a venerable more than 150 history. Created in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company, the name was changed to Western Union in 1856 when the consolidation of several telegraph lines gave the company its telegraphic reach into the most western parts of the Union.
In its early decades the company did a brilliant job of leveraging its core business - communication technology. Its technology allowed it to introduce the first stock ticker in 1869 and then money wire transfer in 1871. Other technological and user innovations followed over the years: in 1914, Western Union introduced the first consumer charge card; in 1943 Western Union pioneered the first commercial inter-city microwave communications system; in 1974 the first commercial satellite in the U.S. was introduced by Western Union.
But imagine, what it must have been like for someone in 1871 to be able to send information or money via wire transfer to every corner of the far flung growing nation. Eventually, in 1980, the money transfer business overshadowed the telegram business and is now Western Union's only raison d'être. In 2006, The Western Union Company handled 147 million consumer-to-consumer money transfers and 249 million consumer-to-business transactions.
Have you ever sent money via WU? My guess is probably not or at least not many times if you have. In today's world of electronic banking, credit and debit cards, global banks and the like, who are these tens of millions of peoples making hundreds of millions transactions?
I was there to send money to a family in Cambodia. I first used the service in 2002 when I had to send a friend in Asia some cash. Before that, I never had any reason to have anything to do with Western Union. I have come to learn, from my own experience and that of a friend who works in a money-exchange/Western Union office that the large portion of business comes from migrant workers, immigrants, asylum seekers, drug dealers, bleary eyed backpackers and the occasional person as myself. (Admittedly, I have in the past fallen into some of the other categories, but never used Western Union then).
In a world of advanced global electronic banking, where most of us never have to think beyond a credit or debit card, ATM or bank counter transaction or check, there is a huge part of the world, both geographically and in human terms, where the primary alternative for moving money is a money transfer system established in 1871 and largely unchanged since then.
While waiting for my turn, I was preceded by one guy who I am sure was some Russian mafia type sending a large sum of cash back to Mother Russia. There were also several immigrants, migrant workers or asylum seekers sending money home to African countries or collecting money which arrived from who knows where.
At Western Union you see the migrant remittance phenomenon in all its glory. Migrant remittances exceed $300 billion annually and play an important role in sustaining certain third and even second world economies. And most of which flows through Western Union or in the case of countries with large Muslim populations, perhaps through the incredibly fascinating and shadowy world of Al-Hawalah.
It is actually amazing that 10 minutes after handing over our money and paying the exorbitant 17% commission, we were called from our friend in Cambodia that he had picked up the cash. Perhaps Western Union has an even more golden future if our complex and electronic web based financial system ever comes crashing down and we are all thrown back into the dark ages.
