Good afternoon. My name is Tom Hadley, Vice President, Corporate Development and Investor Relations. I'd like to welcome you to Western Union's 2025 Investor Day. For those of you who are with us in person, it is so great to see you. For those of you who are joining via webcast, thank you for joining. Over the next few hours, you will hear from members of the management team providing insight into our Beyond Strategy, and then we will take your questions. The itinerary for today will look like this. First, Devin will take the stage and talk to you about where we have come from, where we are going, and where we see the future of Western Union.
Next, Bob Rupczynski, our Chief Marketing Officer and Head of our Digital, will join us to discuss the power of our brands, our digital journey, and what it means to be a digital-first company. Following Bob and making a quick trip across the pond all the way from Rome, we will be joined by Giovanni Angelini and Massimiliano Alvisini. They will discuss the success they've had in Europe with our retail strategy and how our retail business provides the foundation for success. After Max and Giovanni, Sofia Graniello, SVP U.S. Consumer Services, will talk to you about our plan to go beyond remittances. Where we see our consumer service segment evolving over the next several years. Ben Hawksworth, our Chief Operating Officer, will discuss the value of our network. How we plan to continue to innovate with next-generation payment solutions.
Lastly, Matt Cagwin, our Chief Financial Officer, will talk to you about what this all means from a financial perspective and what we believe we can accomplish over the medium term. Before we kick things off, I'd like to ask everyone, please silence their phones and computers. You have the team who will execute this strategy on the screens behind me as well as in the room in front of me. These screens will also be used to project our presentation. If you prefer to follow along on your own devices, you can find the presentation on westernunion.com under the Investor Relations tab, and they will remain available after the meeting. Lastly, before we get started, refer to the safe harbor statement you see on the screen. Today's meeting is being recorded, and our comments include forward-looking statements. You all know predicting the future is hard.
Please refer to the cautionary language in the presentation and Western Union's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the 2024 Form 10-K, for additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. We will now begin our presentation with a short video. Thank you.
Good afternoon. My name is Devin McGranahan, and I have the privilege of being the CEO of this wonderful 175-year-old company. It has been just over three years since I stood before you last as a new CEO, and a lot has happened in those three years. The path that we have taken has zigged and zagged, but we arrive here today at a position that is largely consistent with what we told you to expect three years ago. Matt will have more to say about that later in the presentation. We are a company that has a strong history of reinvention, having invented the telegraph, been an innovator in cellular and satellite communications. We invented the first credit card and now have been a leader in cross-border money movement for the past 40+ years.
We began another journey of reinvention three years ago, and I believe we've made significant and meaningful progress. We've been stabilizing the core of our business and laying the foundation for our next chapter, Beyond. What do we mean by Beyond? Most notably, what we mean is beyond what we are best known for today, which is retail, cash to cash, consumer remittances. More importantly, beyond what people have come to expect from Western Union, beyond what our customers expect, what our agents expect, and maybe most important for this room, what our owners expect. We are positioned today to go beyond. Over the past three years, we have been working towards being and building the foundation to be a digital-first company, enabled by our retail foundation, serving customers beyond remittance, powered by our market-leading payments platform. This is the future of Western Union, and this is Beyond.
Today, you will hear about how our large, at-scale, and diversified business across geographies, channels, and products is positioned to weather the current historic and ongoing disruptions that are occurring in remittances, yet still power us forward to stronger top and bottom line growth over the next three years. An accelerating digital channel, a proven platform and model for retail, a rapidly expanding suite of consumer services products, and our recent move into digital assets are the factors that are expected to be the drivers for our future growth. An important difference from where we were three years ago is the fact that we believe we are now market competitive in over 70% of our geographies and corridors around the world, in both retail and digital.
Three years ago, when I stood before you, we were consistently a couple of hundred basis points above the market in our pricing in important corridors, many in our digital business with no real discernible rationale other than our history of having a strong PAL network. As that competitive advantage diminished, we were slow to adjust. As a result, in what is frankly a very highly competitive market, it was virtually impossible for us to deliver even market levels of growth. The effort and cost to reposition ourselves has been significant and a meaningful drag over the last three years on our top and bottom line. We believe that we managed it well with our cost redeployment program and by driving acceleration and growth in transactions. We delivered stable adjusted earnings per share over the last three years while achieving market competitiveness.
More importantly, we believe that we are now well positioned to begin to really start to grow share and drive the top-line revenue growth numbers. By delivering a product that is fast, easy, and well-priced under our iconic brand, we have much broader market appeal than we have historically had and believe this is critical to being able for us to grow in competitive and large corridors like U.S. to India or Europe to the Dominican Republic. Bob will talk about the potential we see in markets and corridors where we feel we have underperformed against our potential. This change in pricing strategy, however, is core to a larger change at the company. We have become a company that is maniacally focused on the customer, creating products and experiences that the customers need, see value in, and are delighted by. As we focused on becoming market competitive, we also began.
To look at what it meant to be market competitive, or better, on many other dimensions as well. We've invested significantly in accelerating transaction times, expanding our payout-to-account network with many new direct connections, improving our compliance and risk decisioning, and reducing service friction so that we can delight the customer along every step of the journey with us. We are building a culture that puts the customer at the center of all of our thinking and our decision-making. Digital first. Can a 175-year-old company really be digital first? I'm here to tell you without a doubt. Over the past three years, we have invested in our platforms, our omnichannel experiences, and our go-to-market model to make it possible that we are as digital as can be in everything that we do. Our digital-first strategy is simple. Make it as easy as possible for people.
All over the world to transition to a digital experience for any part of, or if they want, all of their remittance journey. Our trusted brand, our geographic reach, and our next-generation platforms, which hopefully you got a chance to see out in the lobby, enable this strategy. Whether you want to pay with a QR code in one of our own stores in Singapore, send money to your mom's Niki Wallet in Nicaragua, request money from a loved one from within our Receiver App in the Philippines, redirect an inbound remittance to your Western Union Wallet in Brazil, or simply send money online from the U.S., our digital-first platforms make it possible to do that across channels and across geographies. We are working towards a truly global omnichannel two-sided financial services network.
Our global platform of digital wallets integrated across our entire network will enable onboarding, payouts, digital asset off-ramps, and importantly, non-remittance financial services. This is what we mean powered by retail. When I stood before you a few years ago, we talked about reinvigorating our retail business. We talked about creating a stable base that can drive new customer acquisition and power our other channels and businesses. We are making progress. Over the past three years, we have made notable improvements to our technology, our go-to-market position, and our operating model. Three years ago, we had a relatively large and somewhat unproductive network. We had a poor point of sale experience and an agent support model that prioritized cost over experience. Our point of sale at the time, as an example, treated every transaction like a new customer.
Took over seven minutes to complete a transaction and produced beautiful 54 in receipts. Yet somehow could not accept a card-based payment. Today, we have a global cloud-based platform that makes it easier for customers and agents to choose and use Western Union everywhere in the world. If you have not done so already, stop by and see Yuri out in the lobby and see why these new capabilities can, in fact, and will be a competitive advantage for us going forward and a foundation platform on turning our retail channel into a digital-first capability. As I discussed at the beginning, the investments we made to become market competitive were not just about cutting prices. We aspire to be market competitive every day, everywhere that is important.
We have implemented an entirely new go-to-market model that includes a new strategic pricing platform that monitors pricing on a daily and, in some cases, even hourly basis. Daily or even intraday adjustments now enable us to remain competitive and profitable when we conduct transactions. It is also important to note that we aren't always lowering prices. For example, in the U.S., since implementing our strategic pricing capabilities in several metro markets, we've seen the net yield increase while maintaining transaction growth. Being competitive when and where it matters is what is most important, not always having the lowest price. Our aspiration is to be the retail partner of choice for our agents. It is one of the reasons that we liked the opportunity to acquire Intermex.
Intermex is known for its high-quality agent support model, notable for things like answering the phone in under 10 seconds, its disciplined go-to-market model, and a strong focus on transaction-level profitability. In our journey to become the partner of choice, I am pleased to announce today that, effective this week, Kroger, one of the largest grocery store chains in the U.S., has selected Western Union to now be its sole provider for remittances. An important decision factor for Kroger was the investments we have made in innovating our retail experience with kiosks, in-line service, and our new integrated point of sale platform that will enable Kroger to simplify the complexity inherent in our products for their frontline staff. Beyond remittances. At the opening, I told you we were reinventing ourselves. What we are doing is going beyond remittances.
The trust we bring, the access that we're creating, and the 100 million customers that we have the privilege to serve are the fundamental building blocks that enable us to go beyond remittance. One of you asked me on an early earnings call in 2023 if we were indeed trying to become the company of other, as it was the only thing at the time on the income statement that was growing. As many of you know, at that time, consumer services products were classified in our income statement under the robust category of other. We have since obviously pulled that out, and now today, our consumer services segment has had strong double-digit growth for nearly four years in a row.
We've done this by expanding our total addressable market outside of remittances with products and services that leverage our assets and our capabilities while meeting the needs of our customers and supporting our partners. We've entered new segments like travel money and digital out-of-home advertising. We've also relaunched and replatformed core products like retail money orders and prepaid cards. We see great promise with Bill Pay, both domestically and internationally, across both our retail and our digital channel. Our strategy is simple. Leverage our channels to deliver high-quality products and services at good value. Every customer that comes to us for remittances creates an opportunity for cost-effective cross-selling of consumer services. For example, if you receive cash in the U.S., can we offer you a prepaid card with that?
If you send money to your mom in Mexico so she can pay her phone bill, how about you pay it for her directly instead? Our consumer services are the everyday financial services products that consumers need and use, already packaged in a more convenient and integrated manner. Sofia will tell you more, but we expect this to become a billion-dollar revenue segment for us in the not-too-distant future. At our core, we're a payments company. We move money around the world every day with speed, accuracy, high-quality compliance, and at a low cost. Our payment system has been a closed-loop system with largely a singular use case: consumer remittances. Today, it is by us for us. We believe it can be more. It too can move beyond what it was originally built for. Many of our consumer services businesses.
Rely on our payments capabilities, but we think it can be even more than that. We envision a future not too far away where we can move money for others for B2C, C2B, and maybe even B2B use cases. Two important building blocks for this strategy are already underway: our real-time account payment network and our just recently announced digital asset network. Ben will discuss these at length in the presentation later, but let me say we are very excited about what we think these capabilities can do for us going forward. Another area that I'm proud of the progress we have made is in driving operating efficiency and creating a culture of continuous improvement. These efficiency gains have enabled us to invest in products and technology while maintaining our above-industry average margins. These investments have enabled us to reduce customer calls by 40%.
Or nearly 7 million calls since 2022. While transactions have increased 6%. Potentially, even more importantly, we have also reduced agent service calls by nearly 50% since 2022. We have meaningfully sped up KYC processes, reinstatement, and due diligence processes, and done that while maintaining our exceptionally high standards for compliance. I am pleased that we have been able to achieve our $150 million cost reallocation program two years early. In recent quarters, as many of you have seen, we have been able to deliver more of that to the bottom line. We remain optimistic about continuing the program and have recently begun scaling our AI investments. We are seeing impact from those investments already in our customer service, our language translations, our programming efficiency, and even our risk decisioning.
We are leaning into and scaling more of these types of projects to power the next chapter of our efficiency journey, which Matt will share more on later. A long-term hallmark of Western Union has been our commitment to returning capital to our owners. We have been and will continue to be excellent stewards of our owners' capital. Over the past three years, we have paid approximately $1 billion in dividends and bought back almost $900 million in stock. Since I became the CEO, we have retired almost 20% of the outstanding shares of the company. We accomplished this while also resolving major prior outstanding tax obligations of nearly $500 million and invested hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrading to a cloud-based infrastructure and our next-generation platforms. We have also begun to deploy capital towards acquisitions after many years of inactivity.
Most recently, we had the opportunity to strengthen our position in North America and accelerate our retail transformation with the acquisition of Intermex. We are excited about the prospects of bringing Intermex into Western Union. Not only will it be financially accretive, it will also significantly accelerate the building out of our independent agent and owned store network within the U.S. Potentially most important, it will bring a proven operating team into our North American operations. A leading factor in Intermex's decision to sell was the prospect of needing to invest significant amounts into growing their nascent digital business while being a public company. Many of their 6 million retail customers will at some point look for and need digital solutions. We believe we can effectively deploy our next-generation beyond digital platform.
Under the Intermex brand to meet those needs and continue our strategy of cost-effective digital customer acquisition and retail to digital migration. Most importantly, we will strengthen our position from the U.S. to many of the leading Latin American countries. As we lap the effects of the current immigration slowdown in the U.S., we expect the benefits of this acquisition to accelerate. We are on an upward trajectory, and our strategy is showing promise, but we need to be able to ensure that we can sustain this over time and distance. To do so requires getting the people, the culture, and the operating model right. Phrases like "customer first," "outcomes matter," "everyone is an owner," and my favorite, "change is required," are easy to say but hard to deliver. We have nearly 16,000 full-time equivalents spread around the world who need direction, support, and encouragement every day.
The conviction in what we are building is widespread and real. Energy and ownership for our journey exist around the globe. Asia has become a turnaround story. The Middle East is rapidly investing and going digital. Our colleagues in Europe who are with us today have been leading the company in retail performance. To continue and support this at scale, over the past three years, we have implemented OKRs. We have installed a performance management system that aligns objectives to outcomes to performance ratings. We have increased the range of compensation outcomes. We have installed a new employee recognition program, and we have launched a company-wide skills development program for our employees. We are building a company for the long haul and a platform that can sustain and grow more than just remittances. That is what we mean by beyond.
It is now my pleasure to turn the stage over to our management team and now Bob to help bring our Beyond Strategy to life for you. So Bob, over to you.
Black and yellow, black and yellow, black and yellow. Yeah, uh-huh, you know what it is. Everything I do, I do it big. Yeah, uh-huh, screaming that's nothing. Thank you, Devin. It's an honor to be back here with you guys three years later and just as energized by the journey we're on. For those of you I haven't met yet, my name is Bob Rupczynski. I'm the Chief Marketing Officer and Global Head of Digital at Western Union. Here at Western Union, everything begins with money transfer. But thanks to the power of our digital transformation, it evolves into something far greater. This transformation is more than just a shift in technology.
It is the driving force behind where we're headed next. This ability to evolve builds on a culture of evolution embedded across the breadth of our 175-year history. As we look back at the vision we laid out in Evolve 2025, I believe at our core, we have built a digital advantage. Because of this digital advantage, we're moving beyond simple transactions to building lasting relationships with our customers. We're moving beyond simply sending money to delivering a customer experience that offers a full range of consumer financial services. Beyond simple rewards to creating true customer loyalty. Beyond focusing only on our senders to empowering all of our customers, including receivers, in every way they need across their financial lives. This is about evolving beyond who we historically have been and transforming into a truly digital company.
Our ability to connect to our customers across a digitally enabled global footprint is a unique edge. We're doing this through three key advantages: our customer experience, our iconic brand, and our unique growth levers. Through that, we believe we will unlock 50% growth in our branded digital business. Our global presence and trusted brand continue to bring people to Western Union every single day. Being found, that's just the beginning. What matters most is what happens next, how they experience our products and services. Let's talk about the end-to-end customer experience. We've modernized the core of our business. We've moved most of our infrastructure to the cloud, and we've reduced friction. We've recently launched our Beyond platform in Canada, which is the foundational platform for transforming this company into a digital-first enterprise.
In doing so, we have positioned ourselves to be ready to serve our customers wherever and however they choose to transact. Let's start with new customers. We've removed friction from the onboarding journey with smarter risk checks, streamlined KYC, and increasingly intuitive overall experience. We've evolved our approach to risk decisioning, shifting from a rules-based approach to an approach that leverages AI models. This transformation in our risk methodology has already delivered material impact. It resulted in 17% year-over-year improvement in North America's new customer approval rates while still lowering fraud loss rates. We are not stopping there. We've tailored our experience to fit every corridor, offering the best ones out options, competitive pricing, and local languages. In three of our top corridors, India, Philippines, and Mexico, new customer conversion rates have increased by about 25%. Some of the best conversion metrics across the entire enterprise.
It is not just our user experience. Speed matters too. Customers want their money to move fast, and we are delivering. Thanks to upgrades in our account payout network, speed of delivery has improved our real-time delivery rates to 84% in this past year. We have built a new digital platform, which, if you have not already seen, you will experience firsthand in the demo space after this presentation. Chris Hammer out there leading that demo booth is excited to show you all of the newly released platform in real life where you can see and you can feel the future of Western Union. This is a modernized digital platform that enables a more seamless customer experience, a cleaner interface, and a faster speed to market across the world. It is more than just a front-end upgrade that takes us from multiple experiences across the globe into a single, fully scalable platform.
It connects both sides of our network, enabling better orchestration between send and receive markets. This means we can deliver innovation faster, tailor experiences more precisely, and unlock new opportunities for growth across our entire ecosystem. We're leveraging that two-sided network because every transaction is a shared moment between a sender and a receiver. We're committed to improving both sides of that experience. Whether it's face-to-face or in digital, we're creating meaningful ways for people to connect through our service. This is brought to life later by Ben, who will share how our payment options are continually expanding, giving our senders more flexibility and our receivers more choice. We've improved what happens after the transaction as well. We're simplifying the experience with things like clear delivery times, next best actions, saved receiver info, and personalized preferences, meaning sending money is faster and simpler than ever before.
By understanding customer behavior and local nuances, we are tailoring every step in the journey by showing sending limits, displaying real-time pricing, and presenting delivery speeds right up front. We've also launched a unique loyalty program packed with perks, including exclusive deals, discounts, and a simple point redemption that makes every interaction feel rewarding. We're giving senders and receivers more control with features like money requests, receiver redirects, referral programs, and wallet-to-wallet transfers. These aren't just tools. They're ways to build trust and keep people coming back. As we deepen engagement and drive repeat usage, we also close the spread between transaction and revenue growth, delivering more value with every interaction. This digital platform goes beyond simple money transfers across our markets. It's built to meet the full financial needs that are relevant to our customers.
You will get as excited as I am when Sofia talks later about our ability to deliver service offerings like prepaid cards, digital wallets, and bill payments. For example, let's take a look at our digital wallet. In Argentina, where it is being warmly embraced by our customers, nearly 15% of the money that is sent into Argentina through Western Union now stays within our network, deposited directly into a Pago Fácil wallet. This means more financial flexibility for our customers and more value staying within our ecosystem. We're also meeting customers where they are, whether on our platforms or integrating into experiences beyond Western Union on platforms like WhatsApp. Thus embedding Western Union into their everyday lives. Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't take the time to talk a little bit about our brand.
Because while platforms and products matter, what truly powers our growth is something deeper, something more human. It's the emotional salience of the Western Union brand. That iconic black and yellow isn't just a logo. It's a signal of trust that's been built over generations. In today's digital world, trust is the ultimate currency. It's what brings people to us before we even speak. That's the breadth of our brand awareness. We're not just found. We're sought out by more than 100 million customers annually around the world. That gives us a unique advantage as we think about how to grow, how we acquire, and how we connect. Western Union is known and trusted around the globe. In fact, our brand awareness metrics show us 86% of senders and over 70% of receivers identify our brand in this space. That kind of brand recognition doesn't happen overnight.
It's built over years, 175 years to be exact, of showing up, of doing the right thing, and helping people stay connected across time zones, across borders, and across generations. At Western Union, we're in a unique position. No other company can match our reach both in retail and online. That is a big deal. It means we can meet our customers wherever they are, whether they're walking into one of our retail locations or using our app sitting at home. When these two worlds come together, we create something powerful. Think about it. Receivers know us. They trust us. They tell their senders, "Just use Western Union. It's easy." Our retail signs are not just signs. They are reminders of the reliability we have built over decades. With 360,000 retail outlets, our brand is everywhere. That visibility helps us stay top of mind.
Our story does not just stop with the Western Union brand. That is where it starts. We are building a portfolio of brands designed to serve a diverse customer set across markets. What began as a single-brand business has evolved into a multi-brand strategy that includes trusted names like Vigo, Pago Fácil, Eurochange, and soon Intermex, all anchored by the strength and trust of the Western Union brand. Each of these brands plays a distinct role in our go-to-market approach, allowing us to tailor our offerings to reach new customer segments and expand our presence more efficiently. Together, this portfolio amplifies our reach. It enhances our relevance and drives growth on both sides of the transaction. We have launched our Vigo Wallet experience in the U.S., anchored by a brand that is synonymous with value in the highly competitive U.S.-Tolhuaca corridor.
Vigo's deep connection to this customer base gives us a powerful platform to expand our digital footprint and to offer consumer services in our largest market. Think back to Pago Fácil's success in Argentina, where we launched that wallet in 2023. As a trusted name in the market, Pago Fácil allows us to deepen engagement with receivers by offering a localized, familiar experience integrated into our digital wallet ecosystem. This is built on the back of over 300 owned stores where we have fostered the relationships with our cash receivers. Through this trust, we can transition those cash receivers into wallet users and continue that relationship in the digital world. Both Vigo and Pago Fácil wallets offer features that matter to our customers: the ability to redirect funds into wallets, request money, and transact with ease.
When paired with a debit card, we give customers increased flexibility to access and to manage their money. Most recently, the Intermex acquisition is expected to power a renewed strength in the U.S.-Tolhuaca corridor. Their partner engagement, smart retail marketing, and deep customer engagement make them the perfect complement to the Western Union brand. We're excited to bring their 6 million customers into our enhanced digital experience, one that will be powered by the Western Union platform but wrapped in the recognizable Intermex brand they already know and love. With this acquisition, we're not just expanding. We're deepening our relevance with the Latin America consumer. We're building on loyalty, expanding our market presence, and creating seamless experiences that will feel familiar yet fresh with a deeply engaged user base and strong brand equity in the U.S.-Tolhuaca corridor.
We will layer on Western Union's digital experience and unlock new potential in a large growth opportunity. This strategic growth vector is a key contributor to the goal of $500 million. Incremental to the branded digital business over the next three years. It's a tangible example of how we're activating our corridor, country, and customer segment levers to drive meaningful, measurable impact. We've laid a strong foundation, and now we have our sights set on the next phase of growth. Our ambition is bold yet achievable. We can grow our digital business by $500 million over the next three years by focusing on three growth levers: corridors, countries, and customer segments. First, corridors. While the global remittance market is growing 3%-4%, there are a number of key corridors growing at a much faster rate.
While we're focused on maintaining our leadership in high-volume corridors like U.S. to Jamaica and France to Morocco, where we are already strong, we have a large opportunity to unlock growth in under-penetrated routes like U.S. to Guatemala, where digital adoption is rising and our reach is nascent. In addition to key corridors, we have the opportunity for country expansion. When we expand into new countries, we're not starting from zero. With over 85% global brand awareness, people already know Western Union. They trust us. It gives us a major head start over digital-only competitors who have to spend heavily just to introduce themselves. Finally, we will target high-growth customer segments. These are customers who are mobile-first, who want to send higher principal amounts, who are migrating from retail. We will unlock our access to these customer segments by offering more of what they want: features like account-based payouts.
Later, I'm excited for Ben to share with you the idea that with over 300 real-time payout options globally, we're not just meeting demand. We're shaping it. Through our relentless focus on building out a next-gen payments network, we are building the capabilities to win in these higher-growth segments. As part of the growth story, we'll continue to focus on executional excellence to maintain our momentum of low-cost acquisition and increasing retention. While zeroing in on these incremental areas of focus, we can't take our eyes off the things that have built this world-class branded digital business. Our total addressable market is far from saturated. With our agile digital platform, we're well-positioned to penetrate more corridors, expand our offering into new countries, and attract high-growth customer segments quickly and efficiently.
This strategy enables us to achieve our goal of acquiring roughly 16 million new customers at an efficient acquisition cost below $20. All of this ladders up, and I'm even more confident today about our ability to drive that $500 million of additional branded digital revenue by 2028. Today, the U.S. is our largest market, but we're seeing strong momentum in other regions as well. Digital transactions across the globe are growing double-digit year to date, and we expect that growth to further accelerate. We have the opportunity to modernize our core product in key corridors, improving both send and receive experiences. Mexico is a great example of this, where wallet adoption is growing fast, and we will meet this momentum with our digital wallet in 2026.
There is the Philippines that shows us what is possible with partners like GCash, where we have deepened our coverage materially in 2025 and unlocked incremental growth on the back of that expansion. Continuing to expand our payout options in these regions will help us serve more customers more effectively. An equally valuable opportunity is in the corridors where we are underrepresented with large customer pools, where our market share does not reflect our potential. In these corridors, we are focused on expanding our capabilities, adding more payout options, tailoring our marketing messages to be culturally relevant, and ultimately reaching new customer segments. Think U.S. to India or U.S. to Guatemala. These are major corridors with untapped potential. We should be capturing 20% or more of these markets, but we are far short of these goals. Closing that gap will be a game changer for our digital business.
In the U.S. to Guatemala corridor, for example, every percentage point of share is worth $5 million to our branded digital business. As we bring in new customers through smarter acquisition and better experiences, we're seeing more stable revenue per transaction compared to our backbook, which has historically been overpriced, proving that growth and sustainability can go hand in hand. The brand strength I talked about earlier doesn't just help us retain customers. It accelerates our growth. That's especially true when it comes to country expansion. When we enter markets like Indonesia, Senegal, and the Philippines, we're not a new brand. We're not completely unknown. Thanks to our retail-to-digital escalator, we are able to convert long-standing retail customers that already know about us. We convert them into digital users, accelerating adoption and deepening engagement from day one. That gives us an advantage.
We just need to remind people that Western Union is here and now in digital and able to help them move money across borders with ease and confidence, whatever their preferred funds-in or funds-out options are. Speaking of preferred payout options, when it comes to how customers want to receive money, account payout is quickly becoming their preferred choice. It is not just a feature. It is a better way to send. Whether through our digital channels or even in person, customers who choose to receive funds directly into a bank account or a mobile wallet may enjoy faster access, higher limits, and greater convenience. With direct connections to over 300 real-time payout options globally, we are making it easier than ever to send money straight to where it is needed. The impact is clear. Customers who use account payout tend to stay with us longer.
They send more often, and they get more value from their relationship with Western Union. Yes, our revenue per transaction might dip slightly, but we continue to see increased principal per transaction, transactions per customer, and overall lifetime value as a result of these efforts. Our newest customer cohorts are already showing us the power of account payouts as we're seeing a 7% lift in their lifetime transactions. As more customers move towards these account-based payouts, we're ready not just to meet the demand, but to go beyond. We're building a future where sending money isn't just a transaction. It's a trusted experience. It's a connection, and it's a way to move lives forward. We know where we'll grow, which corridors, which countries, and which customer segments. Now let's talk a little bit more about our competitive advantages: lower CAC, brand awareness, and retention.
Let's start with what's driving lower acquisition costs. It's really about precision pricing, culturally relevant localized marketing, and product experiences that convert our customers. It's about optimizing every step of the funnel from awareness to repeat engagement, and doing so with discipline, agility, and scale. We continue to focus on both low-cost acquisition as well as funnel efficiency to drive that growth. That means attracting more customers into the top of the funnel, converting more of them, and doing so at a relatively consistent cost of acquisition. Supported by our vast retail platform, our digital platform is the engine that powers enterprise growth. It's built to scale, and it's working. We've cut acquisition costs by 50% since 2022, and we're bringing in new customers faster and more efficiently than ever before. This is thanks to a smart mix of paid and organic media.
While others are still trying to prove they're trustworthy, our organic presence proves we are already there. That means we can focus on what really matters: connecting with our customers. Our brand trust gives us a unique advantage. We can welcome new customers without the heavy cost of acquisition that our competitors face. While others rely on aggressive $0 fee campaigns to build that awareness, Western Union is already part of that conversation. We surface through organic search. We're recognized in retail, and we're increasingly chosen in digital. With continual increases in organic impressions, this trend is not slowing. Here's the best part: our acquisition costs continue to stay low. Every day, millions of people encounter the Western Union brand. They walk into places that we do business. Many of them become digital customers thanks to word of mouth and the organic trust that we've earned over time.
From the days of the Yellow Pages to the new era of AI-assisted search, we are there when and where our customers need us. Our digital footprint is vast, with millions of customers actively seeking us out. It is what we call pure traffic, driven by intent and trust, not just paid ads. Across many of the highest searched keywords, we consistently rank number one or number two. This organic reach is a testament to the strength of our brand and the relevance of our services. As search evolves, AI-assisted discovery is helping customers find what they need faster and more intuitively. Because Western Union is already top of mind, we are well-positioned to benefit from this shift: meeting customers at this moment of need with speed, clarity, and confidence. Ultimately, we know that retention is the untapped multiplier, one that can unlock sustainable growth over time.
As we deepen the relationship with our customer, we're not just acquiring those customers. We're increasing their lifetime value. By driving repeat engagement and loyalty, we're creating a more efficient growth model that balances acquisition cost with lifetime value. One example of our retention advantage is that we're creating experiences that connect and reward our customers by bringing both sides of this relationship closer. In fact, this year, we launched the industry's first rewards platform, designed specifically for receivers. It's a way to recognize how important receivers are in choosing a money transfer provider and to offer them something that is locally relevant. Take the France to Morocco corridor, one of the strongest remittance corridors in the world. Our Moroccan receivers are now enjoying locally relevant rewards like eSIM minute top-ups that help these receivers continue to stay connected to their senders through discounted top-ups.
It's more than just a perk. It's a relevant way to keep partnering with our receivers and keep their relationship strong across borders. Since launching receiver rewards, we've seen over 1.3 million transactions from members sent to Moroccan receivers, with thousands of rewards successfully redeemed. This program has driven meaningful engagement on both sides of the remittance journey, contributing to a 7% increase in transaction growth among members sending from France to Morocco. Three years ago, I stood before you as a newly installed leader of the digital business that was struggling to keep pace with a growing market. We hadn't yet found the right balance between customer experience and our unique value proposition. We laid out a bold vision to turn things around. Today, I'm proud to say we've done just that. We aren't satisfied with where we are today. There is still more to go.
We still will continue to build on our eight straight quarters of growth in transaction and revenue. Our new digital infrastructure is accelerating our speed to market for the critical experiences and increasingly delivers on the expectations of our customers. We have overhauled our pricing to be agile and market competitive across our global markets. Our digital platform is the engine behind our transformation. We started with a legacy platform overhaul. In 2023, we refreshed that platform in almost 20 of our top markets. In 2025, we have taken steps, or I should say leaps, as I would call them, towards the future of the Western Union digital platform. One that is both world-class in its customer-facing experience, but also in its technology backend that allows us to scale rapidly across the globe.
This platform is helping us grow not just in the numerous financial services that we offer and deeply into wallet and broader financial services like bill payments and stored value accounts, but also in the vast numbers of markets and corridors we serve. That is why we are confidently on a path to build a $1.5 billion digital remittance business supported by Western Union's full range of financial services. Foundational improvements are driving strong, consistent growth. These gains are durable. We're seeing 30% growth in account payout transactions, improved customer retention, and customer lifetime value that's up 18% over the past five years while our prices are down. These results show that our core engine is working and will continue to deliver growth. What truly sets us apart is our iconic brand. Trusted by millions across borders and across generations.
That trust gives us a unique advantage in a fast-moving digital world, allowing us to scale efficiently, connect emotionally, and remain top of mind for our customers around the globe. We're activating our three key growth levers, expanding share in high volume in under-penetrated corridors. Entering trusted countries where our brand accelerates adoption. Serving high-growth customer segments like mobile-first and high-principal senders with our next-gen account payout network. These efforts are amplified by our competitive advantages: lower cost of acquisition, higher brand awareness, and escalating retention. We are operating in a moment of industry transformation where digital adoption is only accelerating. Together, these foundational strengths, our iconic brand, and the strategic growth levers position Western Union to not only meet our $1.5 billion goal, but to lead the future of moving beyond remittances. Thank you.
I would love to pass the stage to Giovanni to talk about our retail.
Thank you, Bob. Good afternoon. [Foreign language] , everyone. Thank you all for being here with us today. For those of you I haven't met, I'm Giovanni Angelini, President Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia. I'm sure you have understood in the last few seconds that I'm Italian. Bad comparison with Bob. I speak Italian. I have 25 years of experience in the money transfer industry. Before Western Union, I started as a general manager and the COO of one of the largest Western Union agents in the world, Angelo Costa, based in Europe, spanning 10 countries. I then joined Western Union through the acquisition of this agent to run our European business. Since then, my role expanded to cover the regions I lead today. I'm also responsible for our global retail strategy.
Bob outlined the exciting growth opportunities in our digital business. My good friend Massimiliano, or as we all call him, Max, and I will talk to you about the equally exciting opportunities we have in our retail business. First, I will talk about why our retail business is important to our company. It is a strategic asset that helps drive our entire business. Next, I will talk about taking our retail business beyond cash, beyond remittance. Then I will speak about what drives a successful retail business. Finally, I will hand it over to Max, and we will talk to you about the success he has in our retail business in Europe. A great proof point that shows that our vision and strategy are working. Importantly, we are confident we can replicate that success around the world and here in the U.S.
We will show that by implementing our retail strategy across the globe over the next 12 to 18 months, we aim to achieve stability across our retail business. We live in a world that is increasingly digital. Why then is our retail network such an important asset for Western Union? First, it gives us an incredible global reach. Our retail network is the top channel through which we drive visibility of our brand. It is a key customer acquisition tool. Let me give you a few top-line numbers. We have a global retail network of over 360,000 locations. Eighty million customers walk into our retail locations every year. They drive $2.4 billion in annual money transfer revenue. Through cross-selling, our retail consumer services drove more than $400 million in revenue in our retail channel in 2025. These locations drive more than 50% of our brand discovery.
For all our business, both physical and digital. There is more. This brand discovery enables the low digital customer acquisition cost that Bob mentioned earlier. Next. Our $64 billion in principal and 160 million retail transactions gives us scale. Scale that our smaller and digital-only competitors do not have. It drives efficient technology investment as we can spread development costs over our large volume base. In this way, we can develop advanced digital capabilities more cost-effectively than our competitors can. We are often able to secure better commission and foreign exchange rate, as our volume gives us improved negotiating power. This means better rates for our customers and a lower payout cost. Most importantly, we benefit from this scale across both our retail and our digital business. A unique advantage that is difficult to replicate. Finally, this leads to strong margin performance.
Now, let me go back to our million of retail customers. They send money back home to their families and loved ones. They want the security that personal service provides. These customers value the personal relationship they built with our agent. This relationship builds trust. Trust that is impossible to replicate in a digital-only environment. For these customers, our retail network is the number one option when they need support for their transaction. This is even more true when they know they can talk to a retail agent that many times comes from the same ethnic group. An agent that speaks the same languages. A Western Union retail location is often the first stop for new migrants coming into new places. For many of our customers, our retail location, our ethnic agent, are where they build their first cultural connection with their new country.
All of this leads to a long-lasting relationship. It lies at the core of why our retail business is durable and sustainable. This is something our digital-only competitors cannot provide. Now, let me talk to you about our remittance market and how it impacts our retail business. Current market conditions in many parts of the world are under pressure. Historically, the market has been growing 3%-4%. Importantly, subsegments of the retail remittance market, such as the account payout, are growing double-digit. We expect this growth to continue. We are also confident that there is an important upside opportunity for us in the manic market. We are gaining share in high-growth, under-penetrated receiving market. Our top 10 alone represents $80 billion in market principal growth opportunity through 2027. We are driving this by gaining growth in under-penetrated or under-performing send markets, such as Germany and the U.S.
While cash-to-cash is declining, cash-to-account and wallet is growing double-digit. This also represents an important growth opportunity for us. There is still opportunity for growth in remittance. Now, let me speak to you about our plan to take retail beyond remittance. Western Union is in a position to leverage our global retail asset and our unique relationship with customers to go beyond cash remittance. We aspire to be a leading provider of accessible financial services for people everywhere. To do that, we will leverage the network in three ways. First, our retail business is a bridge to our digital services. It enables a low cost of acquisition for bringing customers into our digital business, as Bob talked about earlier. Second, we can leverage our retail network as a platform to better serve these customers. We do that by giving them access to our expanding customer service.
Consumer services such as prepaid card, travel money, bill payment, and retail money order. Third, we will also leverage this retail network to give our customers on- and off-ramping of cash into our digital products. To pay cash for online shopping and to cross-sell other consumer financial services. Bottom line, we will leverage this network as a bridge to give people access to digital financial services all around the world. Before I turn it over to Max, let's talk about what it takes to unlock growth with our retail business. First, we need a productive network. A network that provides great customer experience. For us, it is not just about having the largest network with global reach. It is about having the right network. Second, to provide great customer experience, we must provide great agent experience. We are doing this through our upgraded global retail platform.
For us, it is critical to offer the right platform. This platform needs to be simple, fast, and easy to use, and also enables digital funds in and funds out capabilities. We also need the right operating model that enables us to execute with efficiency and effectiveness. You may then ask, can we stabilize our business? Can we execute our vision of going beyond cash, beyond remittance, to drive a growing retail business? Can we turn this business around and contribute to Western Union's overall growth story? The simple answer is we can. We are already delivering on our vision for our retail business in Europe. We are delivering on every element of the retail acceleration strategy I just outlined. It is my pleasure to turn it over to Max, the head of our European business.
He will talk to you about the success in retail we are having in this region and hopefully give you confidence that we can deliver a growing global retail business. Max, over to you.
Thank you, Giovanni. Thank you all for being here to hear about the exciting opportunities we have to replicate our European retail success in the rest of the world. I'm Max Alvisini, and yes, a second Italian on the stage in less than 15 minutes. I have more than 25 years of experience in financial services, having lived and worked in Italy, Spain, the U.K., Ireland, and most recently in the U.S. Today, I manage Europe, our company's second largest region in terms of revenue. This is a region that includes some of our top markets globally. For the last six months, I have also been managing our retail business in North America.
This is another great challenge, but also an opportunity for our retail business. In our European retail business, we are growing 13% and gaining market share. Yes, you heard that correctly, 13%. To put that in context, when we began this journey in 2023, our Europe business was declining 12%. This is a 25% turnaround. How are we achieving that? We focus on executing our retail acceleration strategy, including the three key drivers of growth that Giovanni outlined: building a productive network, leveraging our upgraded global retail platform, and implementing an efficient and effective operating model. We are confident that by implementing these drivers, we can bring our North American business and our global retail business back to growth. Our success is based on something fundamental: making every location in our network productive.
Let me walk you through the approach to network productivity and why getting this right is critical to our growth. Broad coverage matters for customer convenience. What matters even more is what happens when customers walk through the door. Productive, experienced agents deliver great customer experience. Today, our European network is almost 100% productive. We have eliminated hundreds of dormant locations. Why is that important? First. As I mentioned, customer experience is critical. Productive agents provide a better experience. Second, eliminating dormant locations means lower costs, such as know-your-agent and compliance training. This drives stronger customer growth and retention. These productive locations are better for customers and are also more profitable. This means happier agents and better agent retention as well. It's a win-win. The composition of our network is key on how we drive productivity up.
At the top of our target productivity model, we are expanding our own store network in places with a high concentration of target customers. These owned store locations are 10x more productive than the average. When we add our North American acquisitions, we will have about 200 owned stores in the U.S., to add to our 1,000 owned stores elsewhere around the world. Importantly, these locations provide a great platform to offer our expanded set of products to our customers, such as travel money, prepaid cards, bill payments, and others. As Giovanni mentioned, as you will hear more about later from Sofia. In the middle, we are filling white space with ethnic independent locations and branded exclusive stores. These are also very productive and ethnically relevant to our customers.
Through our Intermex acquisition, we are expanding our non-exclusive independent agent network, which is a gap for us in the U.S.. At the bottom, we are maintaining existing and winning new larger strategic networks to provide broad coverage and convenience. Each type of agent plays a critical role in serving our customers and driving productivity and profitability. On the receive side, we are equally focused. We eliminate non-productive locations and optimize our network as the payout market shifts to account payout. The second driver of our retail strategy is something our agents and customers feel immediately. We are upgrading our global retail platform and driving growth through digitizing our retail business. Let me tell you what we have accomplished in Europe on this front. We have fully deployed our modernized retail platform. The difference has been remarkable.
We have added features, including a new simplified user interface, a new funds-out experience, and increasing transaction speed. The feedback from our agents has been fantastic. They can serve customers faster and more efficiently than ever before. We are not stopping there. We are now integrating consumer service offerings into the platform. In that way, we enhance our ability to cross-sell to our customers and be a one-stop shop for financial services for our agents. A great example of this is with our travel money service in Europe that now represents more than $100 million in revenue. In 2022, when we launched our Evolve 2025 strategy, this business did not exist. Another important element of our retail platform is changing the way our customers interact with us. We are rapidly digitizing the entire retail customer experience. Retail is not only just sending cash anymore.
It's about convenience, service, and value. Historically, we were a cash-to-cash focused business. We are now rapidly digitizing our global retail network through digital funds-in and funds-out methods. Over the past few years, we have been scaling card acceptance in our key send markets. We have scaled our debit card funds-in Europe. These now represent over 12% of our transactions, and we expect these transactions to grow double-digit. We have also been launching card acceptance in the U.S. and are currently at 4% of transactions, with more opportunities to scale to reach our European benchmark. On the payout side, we are also seeing impressive results. We are rapidly expanding our digital funds-out capability. Our bank account and wallet funds-out penetration from European-initiated total transactions is over 20% of the total transactions. It's growing more than 30%. The rest of the world is less than 50% penetrated.
This gap represents an important opportunity for us globally. What is exciting is that both digital methods serve as a first touchpoint. They are a bridge to full digital transactions for customers. The next critical thing we implemented in Europe is a more effective operating model. This model comprises three key elements: go-to-market sales team, corridor management, and strategic pricing. We have expanded our network in Europe with the Hunter Farmer and Inside Sales team. These teams are experts at identifying and signing the best locations. They also maintain highly productive locations and collaborate with agent partners. Next, we are back to our roots and executing focused corridor management. Every corridor, every location, every customer segment has different dynamics. This requires targeted marketing communication, multiple products, and funds in and funds-out combinations. It also requires strategic pricing. We have implemented localized pricing and management of our foreign exchange rates.
It's not a one-size-fits-all approach anymore. This is critical to compete in the money transfer space. Where we have implemented this in Europe, we have improvements in volume growth, and revenue turning positive to mid-single-digit growth, constantly outperforming corridors that are not using strategic pricing. Today, more than half of our retail transactions in Europe are using strategic pricing. We are expanding this to North America, where we have recently rolled out our strategic pricing in five metro markets and with much more expansion in 2026. Few would have thought three years ago that we would turn around Europe, a declining mature region, with serious geopolitical headwinds, tough competition, and some of the most restrictive regulations in the world. We had a clear vision for our business, the right strategy, and a sharp focus on execution. In the end, our vision, our strategy, and our execution paid off.
Today in Europe, through our highly productive network, our upgraded global retail platform, our efficient operating model, we have proven playbook that we have leveraged to deliver impressive growth rates in our region. We believe that we can execute this strategy with great results across the board. We are now bringing this same formula in North America, where I am spending a lot of my time. We are making progress, and we are confident that we can use this playbook to stabilize global CMT retail over the next three years. After turning around Europe, we are ready to turn around our retail business globally. Thank you, and I will now hand back to Giovanni.
Thanks, Max. How do we take this to the rest of the world? As you just heard, Max and team have executed our retail acceleration strategy in Europe, and they are growing double-digit. We are now executing that retail acceleration strategy in the Americas, as Max, and we will leverage our Intermex acquisition to further support the turnaround of that business. All these elements of our global retail acceleration strategy will help us deliver on our mission to stabilize our retail business. I am especially excited by the impact of our retail platform improvement and our growing digital funds-in and funds-out capabilities. I hope you all now have a clear view of how retail power growth across Western Union. Our retail network is a strategic asset. It drives brand recognition, customer acquisition. It enables us to go beyond cash, beyond remittance. It feeds our digital business and our consumer services business with the low customer acquisition cost. We are 100% focused on driving growth in our retail business. We believe we have a clear path to get there.
Our success in Europe gives us confidence that we can do this. Thank you, and please give a warm welcome to Sofia Graniello, who will talk more about our consumer business services. Thank you.
One way or another, I'm gonna find you. I'm gonna get you, get you, get you, get you. Thank you, Giovanni. For those I haven't met yet, I'm Sofia Graniello, SVP of Consumer Services for North America, and I'm only partially Italian, so. I joined Western Union slightly under a year ago, excited by the company's mission and all the work that you're hearing about today. Before that, I spent the last 20 years working in consumer financial services, which is why I'm particularly excited to share what we're doing in consumer services.
Bob, Max, and Giovanni mainly spoke to you about our remittance business, something we have done for a long time, and we have done well. They also touched on how retail and digital enable consumer services, but we have not shared much about this business as it was not a significant contributor when we last spoke to you in 2022. Consumer services is where we can really go beyond. I am thrilled to share how we are building a business with an achievable path to $1 billion in revenue by 2028. We have created value beyond remittances with a suite of products that meet the payment needs of a mostly underserved population. We have a low-cost acquisition engine. We leverage our existing channels: digital, retail, and our business partners, maximizing reach while minimizing cost. Plus, we have significant market expansion opportunities. Our portfolio is still nascent.
We're investing in expanding customer adoption, products, and geographies. In 2022, we didn't really have a carved-out consumer services segment. We referred to the opportunity, but now it is a reality. Since Evolve 25, we have focused on growing this business, and we have made significant progress. We modernized our platform so we can offer more. We launched new products, improved our product delivery experience, and expanded into new segments. Revenue for this segment has grown to reach 15% of our total company revenue. We have done this through both organic and inorganic investment and have delivered profitable growth. We're still at the early stages of developing this segment. What is consumer services? It is a business that goes beyond remittances. We recognize our unique opening to meet the needs of our customers. They're often underserved by traditional institutions and have strong ties to Western Union.
To do this, we have assembled a suite of accessible products that we can offer to millions of customers globally. We believe we are uniquely positioned to do this given our existing customer relationships and the strength of our channels. This combination allows us to operate a diversified financial services business at lower costs than traditional financial institutions who cannot serve these customers' needs efficiently due to their economics. Our consumer services business encompasses a broad set of products and services. Today, it generates around $500 million in revenue. Our portfolio can be grouped into two categories: transaction-based products, such as bill payments, retail money order, and travel money, and account-based products, which include our wallets and prepaid accounts. These products serve millions of customers across 30 countries. The business has delivered a CAGR of nearly 25% over the past three years.
We see opportunities to continue this double-digit growth through 2028 and beyond. With our consumer services offering, we can fulfill the needs of our existing customers beyond remittances. We can also expand the segments we serve. Today, we serve more than 40 million senders. These individuals first come to us so they can send money home to their loved ones. They may be new to the country and may not have convenient ways to manage their finances. Banks and other institutions cannot always serve them with the transparency and simplicity they seek, or at a price that works for them. We can help them. We are a brand they trust who can help them meet additional financial services needs beyond a money transfer. We also have the privilege of serving almost 70 million remittance receivers globally. You heard Bob talk about our two-sided network.
Receivers are increasingly becoming active participants in that two-sided network. They can receive funds through wallets and prepaid cards. Now that they have received funds and stored them with us, we are well-positioned to help them use these funds effectively for their payment needs. Over 70% of receivers surveyed expressed interest in using Western Union for additional financial services products. We're focused on launching services aligned with what they tell us is important to them. With this approach, we are turning payouts into new opportunities. This is only part of our story. We have developed marketing capabilities to direct them into these products. For example, we leverage WhatsApp and SMS to prompt receivers to redirect transfers directly into our wallets. In Romania, 40% of new wallet accounts have come from these redirect tactics. In the U.S., that number goes up to 70% for our Vigo Wallet.
By the way, if you have not experienced our Vigo Wallet in the lobby, please make sure to do so later. Finally, we also serve customers traveling internationally. While this includes our traditional customers, this also taps into a new and growing segment of leisure travelers who have a need for flexible multicurrency solutions. When these customers travel abroad, they seek travel money solutions as they can find cash and travel cards faster to pay with and easily accepted wherever they go. They prefer to get these products at exchange stores like ours as they offer quick and secure transactions. As Bob and Giovanni covered in their presentations, a key strength of our business is how efficiently we acquire customers at scale and at a low cost, thanks to our digital and retail channels.
Over 80 million customers walk into our stores, and over 10 million customers log onto our digital app every year. In addition to those channels, we also bring in new customers efficiently through our extensive network of business partners. A unique component of the consumer services value proposition is how we connect individuals and businesses. We serve thousands of businesses globally that need to capture from or disburse payments to individuals. When we engage them, they bring new customers to our platform at almost no cost to us. For example, in the U.S., we offer a bill payment product. We work directly with utilities, rent management companies, and telco providers to help them collect customer payments. When we enroll one of these billers as a partner, we may unlock access to thousands of new customers.
These customers may come to us initially just to pay that one bill, but that's the entry point. From there, they can discover and use our broader suite of products. Many of these customers live in a cash-first world. They may not have a traditional bank account or access to credit. For them, we're not just a payment processor; we're a trusted financial access point. Similarly, we also serve businesses that disburse payments to individuals around the world. Adding one of these partners helps us generate multiple transactions, connecting us to their receiver base. How do we grow consumer services to a $1 billion business? It comes down to four things. First, we're deepening engagement with existing customers by delivering additional products tailored to their evolving needs. Second, we are transitioning many of these customers from transaction-based relationships to account-based products. We do this to foster longer, stickier relationships.
Third, we're broadening our portfolio. We have and will continue to develop and launch new solutions that address market demands. Fourth, we will continue to expand the footprint for these products by scaling proven offerings across geographies. By focusing on these four levers, we can continue to drive growth. One of the most effective ways we drive growth is by penetrating our existing senders and receivers with additional products. For many customers, their journey with Western Union begins with a money transfer. This initial transaction builds trust and opens the door to deeper engagement. For example, customers who receive a money transfer can now do so on a prepaid card. In a 12-month period, these customers receive 12% more transfers than those without a card. Prepaid customers who also perform money transfers make 70% more transactions than prepaid-only customers. Today, about 25% of prepaid users are also money transfer receivers.
They use the card to pay for gas, restaurants, and online purchases with the funds they have received. A single money transfer transaction has turned into repeat engagement. A second example. A customer who uses Western Union to pay a bill also tends to make multiple transactions with us. Over 30% of Bill Pay customers pay six or more bills with us in a 12-month period. Those who engage with Bill Pay and money transfer do 200% more bill payments and transact 80% more times than a customer doing a money transfer alone. These are just some examples of how we're creating repeat engagement. Our goal is to drive further penetration of the money transfer customer base through consumer services. We also want to move beyond transaction-based relationships towards account-based relationships and transform how customers interact with us.
Three years ago, we shared our vision to launch a digital wallet as a cornerstone of our strategy. We had not done something like this before. Over these three years, we've learned a lot about what it takes to do this effectively, what works well from a design, technology, and go-to-market perspective. We're now able to have a digital wallet at the heart of the strategy to create account-based relationships. Building on what Bob shared earlier about our wallet, we have traditionally seen receivers as passive endpoints in a transaction. With the wallet, we can have both the sender and the receiver do more than just move money. A wallet account provides customers with the convenience of having multiple functions in one single place. I mentioned earlier that over 70% of receivers surveyed express interest in getting more products from Western Union.
This number goes up to 87% for wallet users. This shift towards accounts is starting to change customer behavior. Let's take Argentina as an example, where we have had a wallet since 2023. More customers are now choosing to receive funds directly into their wallet. Bob shared earlier that nearly 15% of all transactions in Argentina are sent directly to or redirected to our wallet. Why is this behavior shift so important? Wallet customers are more engaged. Wallet users receive two times more money transfers than those receiving money through other channels. This is driven in part by a behavioral change in receivers, where the wallet has empowered them to actively request a money transfer. Here is the real unlock.
Our wallet offering is evolving into a multifunctional financial tool used not only for sending and receiving money, but also for storing funds, everyday spending, and even accessing credit through our partners. Sticking to Argentina, we see our wallet users there averaging 10 purchases a month with their wallet. By expanding the wallet's capabilities, we're delivering more value to our customers while simultaneously diversifying our revenue streams. We're now able to capture revenue from interchange, deposit interest, and additional usage fees. While we focus on Argentina, we also see similar patterns in Romania and Brazil. This provides conviction to continue to build and launch in more markets. Our wallet product is now live in seven countries. This expansion has been deliberate, strategic, and customer-centric, and we're continuing to expand. We're preparing to launch in Mexico and Australia. This is still early days, but our wallet is designed for scale.
It's built to grow with our customers, expand into new markets, and evolve to meet their full range of customer financial needs. Bob described earlier how we have overhauled our backend infrastructure to allow us to scale rapidly, and how we're moving to integrate our money transfer and account products into a seamless experience. As we continue to innovate, the wallet will become an even more powerful growth platform for us. We are also expanding into new product categories. Our global brand and reputation and money movement have enabled us to expand naturally into the travel money space. Travel money opens the door to a wider customer demographic than is traditionally considered to be our core. Both immigrants and international travelers can purchase travel money and load prepaid cards with multiple currencies at the over 500 stores across more than 10 countries where we offer these services today.
This is driving over $100 million of revenue in 2025. On path for more than $250 million in 2028. Travel money transactions tend to have a higher principal per transaction than money transfer. For instance, in the U.K., the average principal for a cash travel money transaction is 20% above that of the equivalent money transfer transaction. In Brazil, we're integrating FX services into wallet experiences, offering customers seamless access to currency exchange alongside digital financial tools. We spoke earlier about how consumer services is unique in that many of our products connect businesses and individuals. Another way we're expanding our offering is by turning our retail locations themselves into a media channel to reach customers. In 2024, we launched the Western Union Media Network, which enables businesses to reach our customer base through targeted advertising.
We now have over 2,000 venues delivering over 50 million impressions daily, and we continue to grow our presence. This platform provides companies across industries with access to a hard-to-reach population. It also provides benefits to our agents as we have delivered one additional tool for them to extract revenue from their retail footprint. This, in turn, generates value to our business. We can do this easily because we have the customer base and the retail presence. Many of our most impactful product developments are rooted in the insights we gain from our customers. One of the most consistent and urgent opportunities we've identified is the need for access to credit. To meet this need, since 2023, we've partnered with lenders to distribute installment loans to our customers. For example, we're doing this in the U.S. and Argentina with Opportune and Santander.
Our lending distribution business in Argentina is now significant enough that its revenue fully covers the real estate cost of our owned stores. As we continue to learn and refine our approach, we're poised to scale this offering. Also, in 2024, we signed a global card issuance agreement with Visa that underpins our global prepaid and debit card strategies, which we're focused on accelerating. As I mentioned earlier, consumer services products are currently only offered in 30 of our 200 countries. We're expanding that geographic coverage, bringing our services to more markets and more customers. Our transactions-based services are currently present in North America and a handful of LACA countries. We're actively working to expand these offerings into all regions. One key area of focus is scaling our consumer-to-business payments infrastructure to support Bill Pay and merchant payments in more markets. We're also scaling travel money.
In Europe alone, we're planning on adding over 1,700 distribution points. The opportunity does not stop there. We're looking at expansion in Asia, LACA, and North America. As I mentioned earlier, we have planned rollouts for our wallet in Mexico and Australia. Let's talk about where consumer services is headed. Today, this business generates over $500 million in revenue, but we see a clear and achievable path to doubling that, reaching up to $1 billion in 2028. How do we get there? It starts with growing our core. Our existing $500 million engine is strong, but still nascent. We aim to continue growing this business at double digits. This growth will come from both organic and inorganic opportunities. Organically, we seek to continue driving customer penetration, product, and geographic expansion. It includes launching wallets in new markets and expanding our digital reach, as Bob talked about.
It also includes stablecoin-based products, which Ben will speak to shortly. We will leverage M&A to further expand our product portfolio and build our future. This isn't just about revenue. It's about evolving who we are. We're moving from being primarily known as a cash-to-cash remittance company to becoming a broader financial services platform, one that meets customers where they are and moves them beyond. I'd like to close with a few takeaways on consumer services. As I mentioned earlier, this business is $500 million in annual revenue, growing at a CAGR of nearly 25% for the past three years. This is a strategic growth engine for Western Union, and we are on track to grow revenues up to $1 billion annually by 2028. We believe we are well-positioned to do this given our compelling value proposition as a provider of diversified financial services.
Our favorable economics driven by our diverse customer base and distribution advantage. Finally, we have significant expansion opportunity. Our portfolio, as I mentioned, is still nascent, and we're investing in expanding customer adoption, products, and geographies. Thank you very much. I'll now pass it over to my colleague Ben to talk to you about NextGen Payments.
Thank you, Sofia. Good afternoon. I'm Ben Hawksworth, Chief Operating Officer at Western Union, and I lead product, technology, and operations for the company. It's not often that the tech, product, and ops guy is on a stage like this. I'm excited to be here today talking to you about something beyond uptime, technology roadmaps, or how AI is transforming our customer service.
With a little over two years at the company and with over 25 years of technology and payments leadership experience, I am proud to talk to you about something that's at the heart of it all. Since last Investor Day, we have made significant progress on many strategic product and technology initiatives. Today, let's focus on one that powers everything you've heard so far, our payments network. This is the part of the story where we go under the hood into the engine room and show you how we're building the future of money movement. You're going to hear three things. How we've built one of the best payments networks in the world, which is real-time, global, interconnected, and how we're expanding it to do even more. How that network enables our business improving conversion, lowering cost, and capturing growth.
We are creating new value from the network, opening it up and expanding into digital assets as we announced last week at Money 2020. Let's start with the network. What you just heard from Sofia is how we are expanding our consumer services from bill payments to wallets, lending, and travel money, and how our retail and digital channels give us a low-cost, high-impact way to reach millions of customers. Bob spoke to you about how our digital platform is now a scaled engine, growing transactions, improving customer experience, and enabling account-based relationships. Giovanni and Max talked about how our retail network is one of the largest in the world, and it has been modernized to serve as a bridge to digital and a hub for financial services. Together, these channels give us reach, trust, and scale, and they are powered by the payments network I am going to talk about next.
Western Union is already one of the most trusted payments companies in the world. We also have one of the most scaled remittance networks on the market. Through our account payout network, we can pay out money digitally across 165 countries and territories with real-time capabilities in over 140. Here is the part that matters. In those countries and territories with real-time networks, we have over 300 active funds-out connections. Of those, over 180 have been brought online in the past three years. Those, in addition to the more than 270 real-time funds-in options we currently provide, mean our customers have over 81,000 possible pathways that are fully digital and real-time for both sides of the transaction. Our network expansion has been met with strong customer adoption.
In just three years, the number of transactions directed via our account payout network has increased 100% from 35 million to 70 million digital payments a year. This supports our growth in the branded digital business, but is also a key part of the retail story you heard from Giovanni and Max. We aren't stopping there. New digital wallets and new real-time networks are still being developed, and we strive to provide choice for our customers now and moving forward. This isn't just about reach. It's about reliability and speed as well. Our customers trust us to move money quickly, securely, and globally. We're delivering on that promise every transaction to millions of customers. What do we mean when we say a real-time payments network?
We define a real-time payments network as the end-to-end system that moves money across the world, funds in, compliance, risk, processing, and funds out, all in under 15 minutes. Market demands for great account payout options is table stakes. To that end, we have brought online over 180 real-time funds-out connections and doubled the number of transactions delivered via an account payout in the past three years. Our funds-out capability is not only giving our customers more choice and their receivers more flexibility, but it is also enabling our growth in branded digital, as well as retail, as you have heard. I will share more about our success and some examples of funds-out in action in a moment. The real value, where Western Union is moving beyond, is through a focus on funds in.
Western Union is one of the few companies in the world that is building funds in rails at scale across cards, wallets, and local bank systems in markets where others will not. Or cannot. Our global agent and licensing footprint gives us the ability to integrate with local payment systems across the globe, enabling us to offer local payment experiences and a differentiated value proposition. The more funding types we support, the easier it is for our customers to transact. Obviously, in today's landscape, the more options you provide to fund a transaction, the more competitive you are. For example, if you only offer bank account options for branded digital customers and someone wants to use a card or wallet, you lose them. We do not want to lose them. We want to serve them. So why is there so much value in funds in?
The answer is because it is a fragmented and complex network. Card networks are global, but card acceptance, real-time bank funding, and wallets are local and require unique integrations in each country or region. This is where we shine. We are building a global funds in network that meets customers where they are, whether that's a debit card in the U.S., a QR code in Brazil, or a local wallet in Kenya. In Germany, as an example, we offer senders the ability to fund a transaction using card, wallet, and bank account options. We've built those integrations using leading fintech banking and payments infrastructure to assemble a globally resilient payments acceptance network that offers a local experience and real-time funding options to Western Union customers. This is a key differentiator that is critical for us to achieve our growth targets that you heard Giovanni and Bob talk about.
This same model is being replicated across our network. Today, we offer more than 300 unique funds-in methods across the globe, with over 95% of those providing a real-time experience to our senders. We're building infrastructure for our future and believe we can leverage it for others to use as well. We have the potential and the vision to become the leading real-time payments network for a wide range of use cases beyond C2C remittances. That's differentiated, and it creates value by lowering acquisition costs, improving conversion, and expanding our addressable market. We are building a leading real-time payment network by taking a holistic approach that emphasizes global reach, direct connectivity, and cost efficiency, all while maintaining an exceptional customer experience. Western Union's focus is on all four. We're not just a global remittance provider. We're a payments company.
We have scale, and our direct connections are growing, allowing us to move money faster and more efficiently. Here is the kicker. We're building this to power us and others for B2C, C2B, and potentially B2B partners who want to move money globally, instantly, and reliably. This idea is already enabling partnership conversations and fueling a new avenue of growth in our consumer services business. We are on the path to having a truly interconnected payment system connecting local and national rails together in a real-time network. Today's payment landscape is fragmented. There are many real-time national payment schemes like SPEI in Mexico and SEPA in Europe, and digital real-time wallets like GCash and Alipay in Asia. Connecting directly to them one by one is difficult and tedious, but we're doing it.
We are creating one seamless global network across these disparate payment options, and in some cases, we even have banking licenses, which allow us to connect to certain payment networks for little to no cost. Network aggregators are a quick way to gain reach, but are more costly, reduce approval rates, and add complexity to the customer experience. We are increasingly going direct. By directly connecting, we bypass the complexity. Not only does the money move securely and in real time, but it goes where the customer wants it. Be it to a bank account, wallet, or card. That is a differentiator, and our customers are embracing it. You might be asking, which countries are in our network? We have real-time payments functioning in our key payout corridors like India, Mexico, the Philippines, Colombia, and the list goes on.
We plan to grow the network even further, connecting to hundreds of real-time payments and wallets around the world to meet the growing customer demand, paying out to where the money is needed most. This goes beyond money transfers, Sofia mentioned. This payments infrastructure is critical to support the expansion of bill payments and B2C payments to more markets. With nearly 90% of our connected countries paying out in real time, that gives our customers access to over 150 bank networks, nearly 100 card networks, and just shy of 50 wallets. Yes, even more when we include non-real time. We have one of the largest secure digital payout networks in the world, giving our customers choice. That is why they choose us over and over again. They trust us to move their money every day to where they need it most. Here is the impact.
Our average account payout commission has dropped by over 22% since our last investor day, and we're not done. We aspire to a future where partners bid for our volume over our rails, and we have examples where that is already happening. As previously mentioned, in that same period, our digital payouts increased about 100% from 35 million to almost 70 million. We believe we will continue to drive this conversion to digital payout, where our commission is significantly lower than a cash payout. That's tens of millions in savings and a direct driver of future EPS growth. Now let's take a look at how this can play out in an individual country. I'm going to talk to you about the Philippines. This is an example of a country where we bypassed an aggregator and connected directly to a wallet called GCash in April of this year.
Since that happened, we've grown GCash-directed payouts by over 30% globally. In branded digital, we have seen nearly 20% growth. These are the types of numbers we are striving for globally. This is how our payments network creates customer and shareholder value. Okay, now let's think a little beyond. Beyond what everyone might expect from the historical Western Union. Our robust network was built as a closed-loop system, reliable, secure, and controlled. We haven't monetized it yet, but we envision a world where we open this network up. It is, after all, a superhighway. Sending more transactions across the network won't slow down the payouts, and we experience economies of scale with each additional transaction. When we open up our network and allow others to ride our rails, we can monetize the infrastructure itself, not just the transaction.
This also positions us to lead in the next evolution of money movement, stablecoin and digital assets. How are we moving into stablecoin? We're taking a bold three-part strategy, leveraging our scale and building upon our end-to-end network. First, we see stablecoin as an unlock in treasury management. We tie up hundreds of millions of dollars all over the world to pre-fund transactions. By settling in real time, we can more effectively manage pre-funding across our partner network. Second, we want to drive utility for other wallets to tap into our vast network. We're building what we believe to be one of the largest on- and off-ramp networks for digital assets in the world, called the Digital Asset Network.
Third, creating value for our customers by launching our own stablecoin called the U.S. Dollar Payment Token, or USDPT, allowing customers to buy and hold, and more importantly, send and spend our payment token inside and outside of our wallet. Let's talk about the Digital Asset Network. We are building what we believe to be the largest on- and off-ramp network for digital assets in the world, and we're doing it now. Enabling our current and next generation of customers and partners to leverage our expansive global payout network that you heard us describe to turn digital currencies into fiat. With our recently announced Digital Asset Network, Western Union becomes the bridge between on-chain value and real-world fiat.
We expect that in the first half of 2026, we will activate funds-out ramps and have already signed up four parties that will be able to light up hundreds of wallet ecosystems. This is not just a pilot. This will be production scale, powered by our retail stores and digital payment networks, our onboarding APIs, and our global compliance muscle. Our fee structure is simple. That means the Digital Asset Network participants win, customers win, and Western Union monetizes at scale from day one. We are also talking to other wallets, exchanges, and payment platforms across a number of markets. Our goal is clear. Hundreds of wallets integrated with our Digital Asset Network, making Western Union the widest distribution footprint for digital fiat ramps in the industry, supporting customers where and when they need access to funds.
We are not stopping at connecting our retail capabilities to the digital asset economy. We have bolder ambitions and want to be a key player in defining and shaping the digital future. Western Union plans to issue USDPT, our fully reserved USD stablecoin, on Solana, one of the fastest, most cost-efficient blockchains in the world. Solana gives us high throughput, low latency, and near-zero transaction costs, which means our payment token will be able to move at internet speed. We are building USDPT with Anchorage Digital, a regulated, institutional-grade custodian and infrastructure provider. This is a payment token engineered for compliance, security, and interoperability from day one and will power our customers, treasury agents, and partners. We aspire for our payment token to be adopted around the world as a transition between digital and fiat currencies. Why?
Because Western Union has something few others have: one of the largest off-ramp networks in the world. We don't need to rely solely on end-to-end customer adoption through third-party wallets. We already have the rails, the payout network, and the trust to make USDPT liquid and available to our customers. Many have asked, why are we launching our own coin instead of someone else's? There are several key reasons why we believe this is the right approach, with a few worth noting. First, we have a natural advantage through our reach to supply stablecoins to create liquidity in geographies where remittance represents a significant portion of GDP. This allows us to better capture economics by earning float for the long term. Additionally, this choice provides us with full control over the stablecoin design and definition of how it's issued, redeemed, and circulated, ensuring regulatory compliance in an evolving global landscape.
Ultimately, if you envision a future world where all payments are tokenized, we want to have the added control and flexibility. Use and utility is key to our continued success. USDPT is no different. We are partnering with Rain to launch a USDPT StableCard, a Visa-backed secured card, both in digital form for instant use and physical form for everyday use. All delivered through a simple mobile-based utility for customers. StableCard is the fastest way to put USDPT to work in everyday spend, and it creates a direct flywheel back into our digital asset network: cash in, cash out, and hold, all through Western Union. Western Union is not chasing a trend. We are shaping the next era of global money movement, and with our digital asset network, we give hundreds of wallets instant access to our global cash network.
With our payment token, we will launch a stablecoin that can scale faster because we own the off-ramp. With our StableCard, we will turn that liquidity into everyday utility. Western Union has the unique combination of distribution, compliance, and brand trust. We can bridge on-chain finance to real-world fiat at a global scale. We have been sending money globally for over 100 years. With USDPT, Western Union is building the future of money. Let's bring it back to the three parts of the story. First, we're building one of the best payments networks in the world, and we've already made great strides. We now have over 300 real-time payout options in more than 140 countries, and we're continuing to expand wallet, card, and bank connections. Second, that network is the engine in the middle between senders and receivers that actually moves the money. It's not just infrastructure.
It's an asset unto itself. It powers our business, drives conversion, lowers cost, and enables us to serve customers better than anyone else. Third, we're creating new value from that network, diving into the future of how money will move. With our unique combination of distribution, compliance, and brand trust, we're building the next chapter of global money movement, from stablecoin to everyday spend. This is Western Union's next-generation payments network, and it will fuel how we go beyond. Thank you for your attention, and I would now like to hand it over to Matt Cagwin, our CFO.
Thank you, Ben. Good afternoon, everyone. For those that I haven't had a chance to meet, I'm Matt Cagwin, the CFO here at Western Union. It's hard to believe it's already been three years since our last investor day.
As Devin has already highlighted, over the past three years, we've evolved from an organization that was a share donor and largely a single-product company to a much stronger and diversified organization today. We've been focused on making the critical changes needed to set up Western Union for sustainable, profitable revenue growth as we enter this new, exciting chapter of beyond. As you've heard from my colleagues, we're moving beyond cash, beyond retail remittances, beyond a single-product company. Over the next 20 minutes, I'm going to walk you through four things. First, I'm going to give you a recap of our performance over the last few years. Next, I'm going to walk you through the fundamentals of our business and how they tie directly to the strategic direction. Then I will share our outlook for the medium term, and then I'll end it with our approach to capital allocation.
When I'm done, I'm confident that you'll agree Western Union is positioned to drive strong returns. At our last investor day, I laid out our evolved 2025 financial outlook that, in absolute terms, has been achieved. However, how we achieved this was not a straight line. As I'm sure many of you remember, our evolved outlook did not expect positive revenue growth until this year due to the complexities of our transformation. However, we got there much quicker than we originally anticipated due to contributions from Iraq, which have reverted back to normalized levels over the past five quarters. As I stand here today, the key difference between where we wanted to be and where we are is our 2025 revenue outlook, our revenue exit rate.
Originally, we anticipated revenue would be trending to 2% growth, which has been negatively impacted by the macros in the Americas, especially on our retail side and U.S.-DeLaca quarters in particular. With that said, I'm still proud of our progress and the stronger foundation that we have today. Given the stronger base and the strategies we've discussed today, we are poised to substantially increase our revenue and EPS over the next three years. From my seat, there are many financial accomplishments that I'm proud of. I would like to start off with our progress on adjusted revenue. We've been able to accelerate our revenue during the first nine months of this year by 400 basis points compared to 2022. You may be wondering how we drove this.
We have been able to accelerate our branded digital business that was shrinking adjusted revenue and transactions 5% and 1% respectively in the third quarter of 2022. To a business that has consistently grown revenue and transactions over the past two years, with the third quarter of this year growing adjusted revenue and transactions 6% and 12% respectively. We have also drove an 80% increase in consumer services revenue over the past three years, which is amazing considering when I stood here three years ago, consumer services was about 6% of revenue and known as other. Now, consumer services is 15% of revenue and on track to complete its fourth consecutive year of double-digit revenue growth. As Sofia just highlighted, this has been accomplished through expanding our product base and improving our legacy platforms. While this is a strong improvement, we believe there is a meaningful runway to accelerate revenue growth further.
Next, I'd like to discuss our cost-free deployment program. As you may remember, we launched this program to free up capital to improve our product offer, improve our platforms, strengthen our talent base, and achieve our margin outlook. As I foreshadowed three years ago, we have evolved Western Union into a more metrics-driven organization. We've implemented a continuous improvement program, which has enabled us to wrap up our $150 million cost-free deployment program two years ahead of schedule. As I've mentioned previously, we are not done, and I look forward to sharing more about our cost-free deployment program soon. The last item I'd like to highlight is our capital return to our owners. Over the past three years, we've remained shareholder-friendly by returning $1.8 billion through dividends and share buyback. This was enabled by our strong cash flow conversion.
I look forward to sharing more about our capital allocation plan later in my presentation. Let's now take a look at the cross-border remittance trends. International money transfer continues to see healthy demand globally, particularly outside the U.S., and is expected to grow for the foreseeable future. The outlook I will share in a few minutes is grounded on the expectation that remittances are resilient and will grow 3%-4% per year. It is also important to know that we believe that we can grow our share based on the strategies we've discussed earlier today, including focusing on high-growth corridors and under-penetrated markets. Let's now dive into our CMT business. Looking back over the past three years, we've grown our CMT business by 6%. The way we grow transactions is a bit more nuanced. It's about how many customers we serve and about how frequently those customers transact.
Let me use our branded digital business as an example to explain this. In the last three years, we've seen about a 25% increase in branded digital customers. We've also deepened our engagement by offering more competitive rates and enhanced our service levels. As a result, transactions per customer have climbed by about 10%. The combination of these two factors has resulted in a 35% increase in branded digital transactions. Over the same period, our overall CMT revenue per transaction has declined by about 15%. This decline is driven primarily by deliberate price reductions, growth in branded digital, the rising share of our account payout transactions, and the growth of our independent channel. We recognize that many of our customers are price-sensitive. Prior to 2022, our pricing was above market.
Over the past three years, we have systematically tested and adjusted our pricing to better align with market conditions, aiming to boost lifetime value per customer. The cumulative pricing impact of these actions is about $450 million. The good news is the market has stayed relatively stable over the last three years. Based on the progress we've made to become market competitive, we don't expect any significant price reductions going forward. However, the other contributors are much more structural, ongoing variables that will continue to have an impact on our business. As an example, branded digital and account payout transactions come at lower RPTs than the company average transactions. However, we believe that they contribute to higher lifetime values. Based on the progress to become more market competitive in the current market conditions, we expect the gap between revenue and transactions to narrow and stabilize around 3%.
Now, let's shift gears and discuss our approach to our expense base. Over the past three years, we've successfully streamlined more than $150 million in costs, achieving this milestone two years ahead of schedule. This accomplishment was supported by operational efficiency gains, including improvements in our call centers, consolidation of our tech vendors, marketing efficiency, cloud migration, organization redesign, and optimizing our corporate real estate footprint. We are not stopping there. We continue to see opportunity to drive further efficiency across our business. Looking ahead, we're targeting an additional $150 million in incremental efficiencies over the next five years. The biggest difference between how we drove the savings over the past three years and those included in our Beyond outlook is the importance of generative AI.
As you heard Devin mention earlier, we're already seeing real impacts from generative AI on customer service, marketing language translations, programming efficiency, and our risk decisioning. Through generative AI, our metrics-driven management approach, and continuous improvement culture, we expect to save $150 million over the next five years. Through reductions in areas such as account payout costs, fraud losses, further productivity improvements in our call centers, technology platform rationalization, and back-office operations, as well as cost synergy associated with the Intermex acquisition. The $150 million in cost efficiencies that we achieve will allow us to reinvest resources into the exciting organic growth strategies you heard about earlier today, as well as support our EPS outlook. Now, let's take a look at what you heard and put it a little bit more into context on performance.
Starting with digital, the secular shift is continuing, and we are well-positioned to capitalize on the trends. As you heard from Bob, we have seen a 100% increase in account payout transactions since 2022. Our retail network and brand recognition give us a distinct advantage in acquiring customers at less than $20, which enables us to sustainably grow. This can be seen in the 12 quarters of strong branded digital transaction growth. As Bob also mentioned, we're continuing to make significant investments in our capabilities. As you may have seen from the demo out front, our new digital platform enhances the connection between millions of our customers globally while creating new opportunities to engage both senders and receivers through a single platform that brings together our CMT business and our consumer services offerings.
Our growth strategy is rooted in three components that Bob walked through earlier: under-penetrated corridors, country expansion, and high-growth customer segments. Based on the strategies you've heard from Bob, we expect revenue to accelerate and, over the next three years, reach $1.4 billion-$1.5 billion in revenue in 2028. Now, on to retail. Our customers typically begin their relationship with us in the retail market, which continues to be a relevant and highly important channel, and we believe will continue into the future. Our retail network is a strategic asset, which is a bridge between the digital platform and consumer products. I know most of the people view retail remittances as a cash-based business, and some probably wonder about its future. We believe that retail is becoming a human-assisted, digitally-enabled transaction channel. As you heard from Giovanni, we've seen retail to account payouts grow by about 100% since 2022.
We've also seen debit-funded send transactions reach 12% penetration in our retail channel for retail transactions in Europe. This growth highlights the increasing customer demand for using digital payment methods to send and receive remittances while valuing the personal touch of a retail experience, human-assisted, digitally-enabled. As Max highlighted, we're seeing strong performance and gaining market share in Europe as a result of our new operating model. We are also excited about the recently announced Intermex acquisition, which will significantly expand our retail footprint in the United States and improve the customer access across the Americas. We believe the combination of this acquisition, along with our new operating model, will help us to accelerate the stabilization of North America. Based on the strategy that Giovanni and Max walked us through, we expect retail revenue in 2028 to be in the range of $2.1 billion-$2.2 billion, excluding Intermex.
As Sofia mentioned, consumer services is how Western Union goes beyond remittances and provides customers with a suite of products that serve financial needs. Consumer services are a particularly exciting area. Let me highlight a few of the reasons why it's exciting to me. First, our consumer service business is an area that we've made a significant amount of investment over the past few years, and we're seeing it pay off in double-digit revenue growth for the fourth consecutive year. Second, consumer service products generally generate more than our company average margins. Third, there's product and country expansion opportunities, which give us a long runway to accelerate growth. Fourth, consumer services will benefit from our stablecoin innovations with solutions like StableCard. Based on the strategies Sofia walked you through and our current strong trajectory, we expect consumer services revenue to be between $800 million and $1 billion in 2028.
As you can see, when putting all the pieces side by side, including the Intermex acquisition, it creates a compelling yet achievable outlook for the next three years. We believe that we can grow revenue to $4.8 billion to $5.3 billion in 2028. This is underpinned by the improvements we've made over the past three years and the strategies we are implementing as part of Beyond. When we met three years ago, we set out an aspiration to diversify Western Union into faster-growing businesses. As I just mentioned, we've invested heavily to grow and expand our consumer services products and improve our branded digital customer experience. This focus has enabled us to shift the portion of our revenue that is generated from retail remittances to 60% today.
Looking forward, we expect this trend to continue, with consumer services and branded digital remittances reaching close to 50% of our overall business in 2028. Yes, this expectation does include the acquisition of Intermex. Speaking of Intermex, let me explain a little bit about why we're so excited about this acquisition. As I briefly mentioned earlier, with this acquisition, we expect to accelerate the transformation of our North America retail business. Intermex's go-to-market strategy is very similar to our approach in Europe and, in some instances, better tailored for the nuance of the U.S. market. Their retail business has demonstrated success, doubling both principal and revenue over the past five years. We are also excited by the prospects of gaining a proven management team and strong operating model.
Their sales and support organization, 10,000 strategically located U.S. agents, and a robust suite of consumer products are unique and valuable assets that they've built over the past couple of decades. We also plan to accelerate and scale Intermex's early digital success, as Devin talked about earlier. As the U.S. and lack of customer base continues to digitize, we see a significant opportunity to capitalize the strength of the Intermex brand and its 6 million customers using our next-generation digital platform and capabilities. From a financial standpoint, due to market dislocations, we were able to acquire this amazing asset for around five times EBITDA and expect around $30 million in synergies over the first two years. Intermex is expected to be accretive and generate $0.10 of EPS in the first full calendar year post-close.
Based on what I have laid out, we anticipate reaching $5 billion of revenue in 2028. Yes, this is a 20% increase over today. This growth will be fueled by the acquisition of Intermex, double-digit growth in consumer services, and strong growth in branded digital as we continue to diversify away from being a retail cash remittance player while at the same time improving our retail remittance performance. We expect adjusted revenue per share to reach $2.30 by 2028, representing a 30% increase over 2025, supported by the strong revenue growth, operational efficiencies, and lower share count. We expect these results, along with our strong cash flow conversion, to enable us to generate $1.7 billion in free cash flow over the next three years.
With the stronger foundation that we've built over the past three years, we are confident about the next three years and see a clear path to achieve and potentially exceed our outlook I just provided, with further potential upside from increased digital adoption, further acquisitions, and cost optimization, all while remaining committed to maintaining above-industry margins. I know many of you are eager to ask me about 2026. I know it'll be the first five questions. As normal, we will be providing our 2026 guidance in connection with our year-end earnings release in February. Now, I'd like to pivot to our capital allocation strategy, which has historically been one of Western Union's strengths. We're known for maintaining a strong balance sheet, generating robust free cash flow, and consistently returning capital to our owners.
When we talk about our capital allocation strategy, we have two principal sources of capital: our exceptional ability to generate free cash flow and our strong balance sheet. Our business model is a true cash flow engine. Over the past three years, adjusted free cash flow conversion has been about 100%. Thanks to this strength, in just the past three years, we've returned about 60% of our current market capitalization to our owners through dividends and share buyback. As I mentioned previously, we expect to generate more than $1.7 billion in free cash flow over the next three years. For our owners, this would mean close to a 20% annual cash-on-cash return. When you think about our balance sheet, we're proud of our investment-grade credit rating that we've maintained since the spinoff from First Data in 2006. That's been possible because of our strong cash flow.
Careful management of our debt, and a thoughtful debt profile. We've consistently aimed for a debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 2.5x-3x . While the Intermex acquisition will temporarily push us above this target for the next 12-18 months post-close, we're confident that the added EBITDA and cash flow from Intermex will bring us back in line quickly. This financial strength gives us the flexibility to go after acquisitions and new growth opportunities while helping to diversify and accelerate revenue. Over the past three years, we've reignited our M&A strategy, signing multiple deals with five of those already closed. Most of these deals have been small tuck-ins but intended to accelerate our transformation. Our M&A activity is designed to fuel growth in several ways. First, expanding our customer base. The Intermex transaction will give Western Union access to more than 6 million new customers.
As Bob highlighted, these customers can migrate to our new digital platform and help accelerate our digital strategy. Second, growing our addressable market. Acquisitions like Eurochange expand revenue opportunities by giving us access to new market segments. Third, accelerating speed to market by acquiring critical platforms and assets such as our digital wallet in Mexico, helping us to move faster and deliver innovative solutions for our customers. Looking ahead, we plan to continue to pursue strategic M&A opportunities aligned with these themes, supporting ongoing revenue and enhancing shareholder value. It is an honor to serve as the CFO of this iconic, storied company that time and time again has reinvented itself. I'm confident that we have a stronger foundation today than we did three years ago. In our strategic direction you've heard today, Western Union is placed again to reinvent itself.
Personally, I'm excited about what lies ahead, and I believe that we're poised to deliver exceptional returns for our owners: growing revenue 20% to $5 billion, growing adjusted EPS 30% to $2.30, generating free cash flow by $1.7 billion, and continuing to diversify beyond retail remittances. Thank you for your time. Now, I'd like to hand it back over to Devin.
Can't see inside of me. Lying high again. Thank you, Matt. Now, that was beyond what I could have possibly hoped for today, despite the people leaving. Beyond is not a destination. It is a strategy to take our company to the next level. Today, you have heard from our management team how we return this company to both top and bottom-line growth, reaching $5 billion of revenue by 2028. We will continue to accelerate our core money transfer business while expanding our consumer services.
Products across geographies and channels. We will also take the lead in the transition to a digital asset-based money movement system, positioning ourselves as an integral player in the emerging stablecoin-based economy. I hope you have also learned about the foundational building blocks that we have been laying over the past three years that will take us beyond what we have been able to achieve to date. The delivery of a great digital-first, market-competitive, and customer-centric experience across all of our channels and all of our geographies is what our great brand really deserves. Our business model is unique. We are the largest retail remittance company in the world and one of the top two digital players. Over the past few years, we have been honing the formula that will deliver stability in retail while cost-effectively growing our digital business.
We have also been expanding our ability to cross-sell and upsell to the 100 million-plus customers that we have the privilege to serve every day. Our scale, our resources, and our geographic reach is what will enable us to deliver the Beyond Strategy and return this great company to growth. Another critical element that you just heard from Matt is our cash generation potential. As Matt shared, $1.7 billion over the next three years. At current market levels, the power of share buyback on now our stable and growing operating earnings is meaningful. We have also been increasing our ability to deploy capital inorganically in a manner that can further compound that operating income growth.
I would like to thank our management team, our board, many of whom are here today, and the nearly 16,000 colleagues who work every single day to deliver for our customers and are, in fact, the linchpin of us achieving our beyond ambitions. Thank you for your time and your attention over the last two and a half hours. We will now take any questions that you might have. No, Matt will not give guidance for the next year until February. All right?
All right. Let's get us started while they bring the chairs up. Kartik, you have the mic.
Tom, thank you. Matt, I do not want to disappoint you, so I want to ask about 2026 in a different way.
Yes, we have assumed Intermex mid-year.
There you go. I think as part of your long-range or 2028 projections, you said money transfer market growing 3%-4%.
It seems like in 2026, there's a lot of uncertainty, uncertainty around immigration and uncertainty around the economy, plus this remittance tax. Is 2026 a year that could be different than what you expect 2027 and 2028 to be from a market growth standpoint? Thank you.
We're getting organized for you.
Yeah, no worries.
Your perfect spot right behind the light. I can't even see who you are at this point.
There you go.
It's Karthik.
I knew that.
Oh, okay. All right.
I'm not ready and prepared to talk about it. I mean, we've been making trajectory improvements. You saw on our last call, we talked about the fact that we have now been stable in the U.S. for a couple of quarters in a row. You started to get to lap that. Macros that we've encountered.
We expect to see improvements, but it's early days and not prepared to give exact impacts. There are some uncertainties, as you know, and everybody in the room knows around what the remittance tax will do. I'll share what you and I briefly talked about in front out there. We see it as an opportunity as well as it has a little bit of a risk. The opportunity is it can actually get customers that need other solutions we have. Sofia talked earlier about our prepaid cards, our Vigo Wallet here in the U.S. Those are tools that people can actually avoid the remittance tax, and we have the ability to monetize that more. You can have a situation where they go to Bob's World, and that could have an RPT impact, or they can go to Sofia's Prepaid World, and we can make revenue twice.
It is very early days. I know exactly how it is going to pan out in the first quarter, but I am looking at it more from an optimistic standpoint. I do not know if any of you want to add.
Maybe, Devin, just one follow-up. You talked about $1.6 billion in free cash flow, the opportunity to buy stock. If you look over the last five, six, seven years, as long as I have followed the company for a long time, there has always been a lot of buyback, but the stock has not trended, right? You could make a case that maybe that free cash flow should have been invested in other things. As you look at the outlook for this company, do you think it is better to use that cash to buy back stock or go out and try to acquire and maybe change the growth trajectory of the company?
We have been doing both now. As I highlighted, we've reignited the acquisition engine. Like anything, you can't go from stop to start and hope you're going to win the race. We've been honing the capabilities and skills to buy companies, integrate them successfully, and help drive the overall business. As Matt said, we've done a half a dozen-plus deals. That is the foundation upon which when the right deals come, and we are very disciplined, as we've evidenced, in terms of making sure that we do deals that add value from a shareholder standpoint relative to the alternative, which right now, at whatever we are, $9.50, is pretty attractive. We see a much brighter future than the markets do. Buying back stock, particularly on a growing operating income basis, should be really a creative force. Tien-Tsin?
Hey, thank you. Good update.
I learned a lot. Just thinking about opening up the payment network, that's something that's been discussed at Western Union for a while. Thinking about the digital asset opportunity and the positioning and being the ramp there makes a ton of sense. My curious is just putting the guardrails in place to make sure that you're investing in that properly from a timing perspective and when that might translate. How have you thought about that in the framework of through 2028 and maybe even beyond? It feels like you can go in pretty hard, and it might be too early. We've seen that before with Western Union or some of your peers in the past. How have you thought about that and how to follow- up?
I think Tien-Tsin and Ben talked a lot about this. A lot of what we're doing. Particularly in the payment network, it is really to support our own business. We moved all of the processing to the cloud. We are really focusing on building out the funds in and the funds out to be localized, to be real-time, to be highly compliant. We are doing it in a technology architecture that makes it more efficient and effective for us. All of those things we are going to do regardless. The added benefit is, as we have gone through the transformation, Ben and the technology team have built it in a way that if we want, which, by the way, was not historically true, we can open it up. The API architecture, the ability for people to plug into it, is far more seamless now than it ever was. The core of what we are building is really to support our own business.
It really is to support what you heard from Sofia, what you heard from Bob, and what you heard from Giovanni. We think that that real-time payments network, the ability to fund across geographies, across payment types, and to pay out in real-time is a strategic asset for us. If there is market demand, we're going to take advantage of it. You did not see us come up here and say, "Hey, we see a billion dollars of revenue from opening it up." What we said is we're building a strategic asset that has utility beyond, and we're going to see what that looks like.
Yeah, I get it. From a utility perspective, that makes sense. Maybe just my follow-up for either of you, probably more for Matt. Just thinking about consumer services and.
Appreciate the margins are higher than the remittance business, but it's got some network elements to it. Network economics are very strong. Some processing elements, even some fintech or neobanking. Characteristics that have pretty high incremental margins in general. How much of a needle mover to the EPS do you see consumer services. Or am I way off in thinking about the contribution margins from some of the things that you're investing in?
Yeah, you're not way off. I mean, as Sofia talked about, we see a way to go double our consumer services business over the next three years, going from $500 million to $1 billion. Today, it has margins in the mid-20s. That part you can kind of put there. We're going to innovate some other things. When you break it up, you've got value from our bill pay business.
That has a very variable cost nature and moves. Our money order business moves around a little bit with float. Our travel money business is additive to our agent locations and has very low costs if the location is being added to existing businesses, so that would be scalable. I think when you look at it, the answer is yes, it should scale, but it would not go all of a sudden from 100% fall through for that $500 million. You should think about it as pulling the margins up over time. It's Quad Group.
Thanks for taking the question. Just a follow-up to Tien-Tsin's questions. If you think about the margin profile of your business today and kind of how it will evolve through 2028, thank you.
Yeah, we intentionally did not give guidance this time on margin. I'll be very transparent about that.
We have a lot of moving parts where we're making investments and decisions. What we're really committed to is growing the revenue and growing our EPS. There could be times trade-offs between above the line and below the line on operating income. We do expect to continue to accelerate, as you can see in our EPS, which has been flat, as Devin talked about for three years. Part of that was the acceleration from 2023 went way faster than we thought because of Iraq. We are closer to a 9% growth rate where what we've built into this model is closer to that for every year. That's really just us driving top line with good fall through.
I think importantly also is philosophically, we view ourselves as a margin-generating business. Unlike other payments or fintechs, we are a business that produces operating profit and net income.
Matt and the team do a great job of managing our tax liabilities. We are not going to move away from focusing on generating profitable operating growth for the company through good times, bad times, investment cycles. That is deep in our DNA.
Any further questions?
There is wine waiting.
If not, thank you for coming. There are cocktails and hors d'oeuvres in the lobby. Look forward to mingling and chatting with you about our Beyond Strategy. Thank you.