Western Union wil launch 10,000 Western Union-branded handsets called Yellow Phones in Uganda as part of a strategy to create a more personal relationship with its customers, the company is expected to announce shortly after Mobile World Congress. The money transfer firm is looking to trade on its familiar brand by giving the yellow and black handsets away for free to loyal customers.
 
“We see an opportunity to get much closer to our customers,” said Gregg Marshall, Western Union’s global head of mobile services in an interview with Mobile World Daily. The company wants to move from being a transactions-focused company to one that is more user-oriented, says Marshall. 
 
The Yellow Phone in Uganda is a featurephone although Western Union is also looking at the possibility of offering smartphones in the future too. The money transfer service is embedded in the handset and also appears on its homescreen.
 
In addition Western Union will also announce a partnership with Ericsson whereby its remittance solution will support the Swedish vendor’s mobile wallet products. Ericsson has just expanded its mobile wallet portfolio.
 
Western Union will also announce at the show that other mobile operators are soon to launch, or plan to launch, its international remittance service that enables mobile users to send and/or receive money directly to their phones. The operators are Roshan from Afghanistan, MTN in Uganda and Millicom-owned Tigo in Paraguay.  
 
Finally Western Union is supplying Italy’s Wind with a new service so users can send funds directly from their prepaid, credit and debit cards to recipients worldwide, it will announce. The service is an alternative for mobile operators reluctant to build their own mobile wallets, says the company.