Western Union Selects Noah for Remittance Network Targeting More Than 200 Countries and Territories
Key Facts
Noah announced that Western Union had selected it to power a global platform for moving money between traditional currencies using stablecoin infrastructure. It said the "Receiver Redirect" service would target coverage of more than 200 countries and territories under its announced future scope. The service will enable transfers in more than 60 currencies, according to Noah's announcement of the partnership with the remittance company. The collaboration extends to the banking infrastructure and treasury services underpinning the service, through to distributing Western Union's stablecoin to recipients. The move is part of the company's expansion into digital assets, which has included announcing plans for a dollar-denominated currency and a digital asset network.
According to Noah, the company will provide on-chain banking infrastructure, alongside the treasury services and licensing needed to operate the service. Its role includes prefunding, conversion and distribution of USDPT to beneficiaries, the operations it outlined in the collaboration announcement. The dollar-denominated currency is issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, according to Western Union's launch announcement. The currency runs on the Solana network, while Western Union described the issuing bank as the first federally regulated crypto bank in the United States. The company says the currency is redeemable for dollars at a ratio of 1:1 and is fully backed by reserves, under the terms it announced for the product.
Western Union announced its plans to launch its stablecoin and digital asset network on October 28, 2025, before its agreement with Noah. The plan combined the issuance of a dollar-denominated digital asset with the creation of a dedicated digital asset network within the company's payments business. When announcing that plan, Chief Executive Devin McGranahan linked the expansion to the commercial returns associated with stablecoins. He said: "Western Union's USDPT will allow us to own the economics associated with stablecoins." The Noah agreement adds operational arrangements for the money transfer service to that effort, including funding, currency conversion and distribution to recipients through the infrastructure the company will provide.
The digital expansion comes as Western Union's traditional business faced revenue pressure, according to its second-quarter earnings statement. Revenue reported under generally accepted accounting principles was about $1.0 billion during the period. Revenue fell 1% year on year, on both the reported and adjusted bases cited by the company in its results. Western Union attributed the pressure to a slowdown in agent-based remittances in the Americas, the business it cited when explaining revenue performance. It said growth in consumer services and digital business partly offset the impact of that slowdown.
Across the remittance market, a World Bank report showed a decline in the average global cost of sending money during the periods it covered in 2025. The global average was 6.36% of the transfer value in the third quarter, according to the bank's remittance prices report. That compared with an average of 6.49% in the first quarter of the same year, with costs taking a smaller share of the money transferred between the periods. In a separate estimate of flows, the World Bank projected that officially recorded remittances to low- and middle-income countries would reach about $685 billion in 2024. That estimate covers money flowing to those countries, within a market where Western Union is expanding its digital services.
The company previously announced on August 4, 2026, the launch of "Stablecard" in partnership with Rain, as part of its stablecoin-linked products. The product combines a digital wallet with a Visa credit card secured by USDPT, according to Western Union's launch announcement. The card initially became available in 37 markets, ahead of the expansion target the company set for the end of the launch year. Western Union states in the product terms that the card pays no interest and does not represent a claim on funds insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. It also makes product availability subject to geographic and regulatory requirements and eligibility terms, which govern users' access to the card and its linked wallet.
Under the card's announced expansion programme, Western Union aims to reach more than 60 markets by the end of the launch year. That target concerns the rollout of "Stablecard", while Noah outlined a future scope for the Receiver Redirect service covering the currencies, countries and territories it will serve. The company's next financial update will come with the release of its third-quarter 2026 results in November. Western Union said it would discuss those results on November 4, 2026, during a call scheduled for 4:30 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time. The financial results will be released before the call, according to the company's announcement of the timing of its disclosure and discussion of the period's business.