Western Union Acquires Custom House

Western Union (Englewood, Colo.) purchased international business-to-business payments provider Custom House (Victoria, British Columbia). The move marks Western Union's entre into the B2B payments space.

Custom House focuses on cross-border payments for small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) and processes payments originating in seven countries for payout in 120 countries. It has an annualized revenue run rate of $100 million. Western Union says this acquisition will significantly expand its service offerings and customer base, estimating that the SME cross-border payments market generates global revenue at least as great as the consumer-to-consumer money transfer market.

Through its multichannel delivery system, Custom House enables more than 40,000 clients to make payments in over 150 currencies. Its clients range from businesses with a need to pay international staff to firms that want to pay vendors and merchants quickly and efficiently.

"Custom House has a proven operating model, seasoned management team and differentiating technology," said Ranjana Clark, president, Global Business Payments and head of Global Strategy with Western Union, in a statement. "Its relatively small share of a large and expanding market offers an incredible runway for growth. This acquisition makes Western Union an instant player in the business-to-business payments space and its account-to-account capabilities complement our existing services."