On Tuesday, wise and Western Union Co announced that Google had launched an international money transfer partnership with them for users of its U.S. payments app.
The partnership means that Google Pay users in the United States will transfer money to app customers in India and Singapore. The company plans to extend this service to 280 countries by the end of the year-80 countries via Wise and 200 via western Union.
"Even with COVID, a lot of people have relocated around the world, and we wanted to focus on how we can help facilitate these payments. Our goal for this year is to work with Wise and Western Union to roll this out for the countries they support." Josh Woodward, director of product management at Google.
Wise is a London based firm established in 2011. The company aims to make international money transfers cheaper and easier. On the other hand, Western Union is a household name in the remittances space, boasting of a mass global network of physical locations.
The Silicon Valley technology company redesigned its U.S. payments app in November, introducing paid promotions to the service and opening a waitlist for bank accounts being launched next with several lenders.