The Western Union Company (WU) touted its upcoming Germany and Romania digital banking pilot in its third quarter earnings results, according to a press release.
WU President and CEO Hikmet Ersek said in the release that the digital bank should launch before the year’s end.
The digital banking pilot will offer an integrated digital banking solution with money transfer, a multi-currency account and debit card.
Read more: Western Union Launches WU Shop
Ersek added in the release that WU has also been rolling out WU Shop, a shopping and cash back rewards program, in select countries.
Digital money transfer revenues have been boosted by 15% on a reported basis, with transfers reaching new quarterly highs for transactions and principals, according to the release. Westernunion.com revenue was up 12%, and there was cross-border revenue growth of 16%.
The number of average monthly users was up 8% from the same time last year, and the Western Union mobile app was the most-downloaded app among similar money transfer companies in the third quarter, the release stated, citing data from Sensor Tower, a mobile app marketing firm.
The company also had third quarter revenue of $1.3 billion, a 2% increase on a reported and constant currency basis, with the growth led by digital money transfer, according to the release.
Business Solutions was also a part of the boosts to revenue, but it was somewhat offset by retail money transfer because the economy was still recovering.
Earlier this week, Ersek said the developments of the new digital platforms, including the digital banking pilot, “positions us well to build a consumer ecosystem and drive long-term growth for the company.”
The company’s shopping platform, WU Shop, has launched in Germany and Austria. It is targeted to loyalty members, letting them shop at over 12,000 merchants in over 60 countries. They can send gifts around the world and earn cash back.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) provided new guidance Friday (March 28) saying that FDIC-supervised institutions can engage in crypto-related activities without receiving prior FDIC approval, provided they adequately manage the associated risks.
The FDIC provided this new guidance in a Financial Institution Letter (FIL-7-2025) that rescinds an earlier one (FIL-16-2022), it said in a Friday press release.
Previously, under the guidance that is now rescinded, the FDIC required prior notification of crypto-related activities, according to Friday’s Financial Institution Letter.
“With today’s action, the FDIC is turning the page on the flawed approach of the past three years,” FDIC Acting Chairman Travis Hill said in the release. “I expect this to be one of several steps the FDIC will take to lay out a new approach for how banks can engage in crypto- and blockchain-related activities in accordance with safety and soundness standards.”
The FDIC expects to issue further guidance to provide additional clarity regarding “banks’ engagement in particular crypto-related activities” and will work with the other banking agencies to provide further guidance or regulations that will replace current interagency documents related to crypto assets, according to the release.
This announcement came three weeks after another banking agency, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), reclarified certain crypto banking permissions.
On March 7, the OCC published Interpretive Letter 1183 to confirm that crypto-asset custody, certain stablecoin activities and participation in independent node verification networks such as distributed ledger are permissible for national banks and federal savings associations.
“The OCC expects banks to have the same strong risk management controls in place to support novel bank activities as they do for traditional ones,” Acting Comptroller of the Currency Rodney E. Hood said at the time in a press release. “Today’s action will reduce the burden on banks to engage in crypto-related activities and ensure that these bank activities are treated consistently by the OCC, regardless of the underlying technology.”
It was reported in February that Coinbase, the country’s largest crypto exchange, was lobbying American regulators to make bank-cryptocurrency partnerships more feasible.
The effort came amid a changing digital asset landscape in the U.S. following the arrival of a new pro-crypto administration in Washington, PYMNTS reported at the time.
