The Western Union Company (NYSE:WU) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

So is that FX? Is that the incremental expenses, maybe just a little color on why we’re not seeing some of that strength come through in the numbers and just any color you’d provide on the fourth quarter. Thanks.

Matt Cagwin: Hey, Will, thanks for the question. FX not a material impact to us. We do think it’ll be a drag based on today’s rates of about a penny, but not a major driver for us. Really what you’re probably doing the calculus on is, we’re looking to make some incremental investments and I’m hopeful, Devin, I’m the saver and Devin’s the spender and he’s promised me that he’ll catch up in the investments in our Evolve Strategy, both on the point of sale solution, the one app solution that he talked about in the ecosystem. We’ve done additional marketing things of that nature. So a little bit similar to last year. As we work our way throughout the year, we start saving well in advance of the actual spend.

Devin McGranahan: Will, I think it also goes to a general philosophy that we’ve been working towards where we have a tendency to want to start the year relatively conservative, make sure that we’re going to be able to deliver on our commitments and as we get towards the back half of the year and have confidence in the macro and in the performance of the business continue to make the investments in our strategy. And so, again, you saw that last year you’re seeing some of that this year.

Operator: Our next question comes to us from Andrew Schmidt from Citi. Please ask your question.

Andrew Schmidt: Hey, Devin. Hey, Matt. Thanks for the question and good job on the progress here. I wanted to dig in on the digital side for a second. Maybe you could talk about what you’re seeing in just new user acquisition trends and then anything that’s a gross new user number usually call out. Maybe you could talk about whether the user base is growing on a net basis and if not, what’s the right expectation around that? Thanks a lot.

Devin McGranahan: Thanks for the question. A couple of things to unpack there. As you know, when we launched our strategy back in August, September, our goal was to drive double-digit new customer growth, which would then drive double-digit transaction growth, eventually bringing us back to double-digit revenue growth. Since we’ve launched that, we have continued to see double-digit new customer growth in cross border and we continue to have that drive our sustained transaction growth. I was quite pleased in the quarter, as we’ve begun to really lap the most important market, which is North America, you’ve seen that transaction growth and customer growth continue in the double digits. Our ongoing program, which is to continue to drive that through improved marketing, through improved effectiveness, is sustainable and ongoing. So we expect and continue to see users growing, new customers growing, transactions growing, and that’s what’s powering our revenue.

Operator: Our next question comes to us from Tim Chiodo from UBS. Please ask your question.

Timothy Chiodo: Great. Thank you for taking the question. I want to go to a – that was made during your prepared remarks that was a standout around the North America retail business with the I believe it was revenue up three and the transactions positive for the first time in a big number, which was six years. So I was hoping you could do a little bit of a broader kind of refresh us on the North American retail market in terms of the number of agents and how that might compare to two, three years ago, the mix of exclusive versus not how that might compare to a few years ago. Any other key broader stats about that North American retail business which just had its best quarter in six years?

Devin McGranahan: Yes, it’s a great question. Thank you. The interesting thing is the nature of what I’ll call the structural elements is largely consistent with what it’s been in past years in terms of the number of agents, the number of locations, the mix of those locations between our independent brands Vigo and OV, as well as our more exclusive brand, Western Union. Very little of that has changed, if any, or at all. The underlying driver of the productivity really has been around our go-to-market, improving our agent experiences, winning a bigger share within those non-exclusive agents and making our exclusive agents more productive. Investing in the right retail marketing messages to bring customers back into Western Union locations where in the past they might have left.

The last is we’re getting very tactical at a corridor level in terms of improving the products experiences. So doing things like home delivery in the Dominican Republic, making sure that we have the right payout partners and the right exchange rates to Mexico. So the tactical execution of aligning the product and service delivery in a geography with an agent for a corridor is what really has been driving that performance.

Timothy Chiodo: Thank you. I appreciate that context. The minor follow up, I apologize if this was captured early and I missed it, but the overall total company revenue growth of flat to up one, which was ex-Argentina. Did you mention what the aggregate across the first three quarters impact from Iraq was? In other words, what would that zero to one be if it didn’t have that benefit from Iraq in the first three quarters of the year?