MoneyGram to provide services in 3,000 Bulgarian post offices
Global money transfer company MoneyGram International has inked a deal with the Bulgarian Post Office to extend its services through 3,000 post offices in the Eastern European republic. US company MoneyGram has already started providing its services through 165 Bulgarian post offices, and under the agreement it is expecting to extend this to 1,000 by the end of this year.
Customers within Bulgaria’s post offices will be able to send or receive money from anywhere in the network of more than 256,000 MoneyGram locations in 192 countries and territories.
Among European nations, Bulgaria has one of the highest proportions of its population working abroad, with around 16% of its citizens emigrating outside its borders, sending home more than $1.5bn in earnings each year, a figure growing at around 8% annually.
Deyan Daneshki, chief executive of Bulgarian Post, said many Bulgarian citizens were living as migrants across Europe, as well as in the United States or Canada.
“This alliance will provide them convenience and access to services that our customers need and rely on,” he said.
MoneyGram said that working with the Bulgarian Post Office meant not only extending its access through retail locations including in rural and remote areas, but would also allow its customers the option to deliver money to a receiver’s home.
Pamela H Patsley, chairman and CEO at MoneyGram, said: “Working with agents like the Bulgarian Post Office is aligned with our strategy of enhancing the availability of our products to all consumers whether they live in their home country or abroad.”
The Bulgarian deal extends MoneyGram’s working relationship to partnering 27 national postal services around the world, Patsley added.
The Dallas-based company told Post&Parcel that including the 165 post offices, it currently has nearly 1,700 locations in Bulgaria through bank partners, but was not yet clear on how long it would take to extend through all post offices across the country.
Spokesperson Patty Sullivan said: There are many details and variables that go into getting a location up and running successfuly. We work as quickly as possible, as we want the postal customers to have access to our MoneyGram services as soon as possible and in as many locations as possible.”
