MoneyGram 2008 Annual Report Download - page 10

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Table of Contents
and new products supplement our Global Funds Transfer segment. We have also invested in new infrastructure to increase efficiencies
and support our strategic initiatives. We believe new features, products and infrastructure will provide customers with added flexibility
and convenience to help meet their financial services needs.
New Product and Product Enhancements: Our Internet-based money transfer service, eMoneyTransfer, continued to grow during 2008.
In 2009, we plan to make significant enhancements to our eMoneyTransfer service which will provide better usability and efficiency in
completing a transaction for our online customers, as well as more cost-effective transaction processing. In 2009, we plan to offer our
MoneyGram Rewards members the ability to receive a text message on their mobile phones informing them that the funds they
transferred have been picked up by their receiver. We currently intend to expand MoneyGram Rewards internationally in 2009. Both
eMoneyTransfer and MoneyGram Rewards relate to our Global Funds Transfer segment.
Infrastructure Development: We continue to invest in our infrastructure, including settlement and commission processing, agent and
customer data management and set-up, and other important financial systems. This investment is intended to increase the flexibility of
our back office, thereby improving operating efficiencies and communications between our agents and our marketing, sales, customer
service and accounting functions. Our ongoing investment in technology and process re-engineering is designed to allow us to create an
infrastructure able to support our strategic initiatives, increase speed to market for new products, enhance information repositories for
regulatory and compliance reporting and provide a better overall customer and agent experience.
We are continuing our efforts to automate our agent on-boarding process, which is intended to improve our speed to market for new
agents, enhance departmental tracking and increase organizational accountability. The on-boarding process includes a business process
management tool, which allows us to automate a formerly paper-intensive process.
Competition
The markets in which we compete are very competitive and our segments face a variety of competitors. In addition, new competitors or
alliances among established companies may emerge. Consolidation among payment services companies, and money transmitters in
particular, has occurred and may continue. We compete for agents and financial institution customers on the basis of value, service,
quality, technical and operational differences, price and financial incentives paid to agents once they have entered into an agreement. In
turn, we compete for consumers on the basis of number and location of outlets, price, convenience and technology.
Money transfer, money order and bill payment services within our Global Funds Transfer segment compete in a very competitive and
concentrated industry, with a small number of large competitors and a large number of small, niche competitors. Our primary competition
comes from The Western Union Company, including its Orlandi Valuta, Vigo and Pago Facil brands (collectively, "Western Union").
Western Union has a larger agent base, a more established brand name and substantially greater financial and marketing resources than
we do. In addition to Western Union, the U.S. Postal Service is a large competitor with respect to money orders. We also compete with
banks and niche person-to-person money transfer service providers that serve select regions. Our PropertyBridge services compete
against providers of electronic bill payment services and companies that focus on the rent payment and other key verticals.
As new technologies for money transfer and bill payment services emerge that allow consumers to send and receive money and to pay
bills in a variety of ways, we face increasing competition. These emerging technologies include online payment services, card-based
services such as ATM cards and stored-value cards, bank to bank money transfers and mobile telephone payment services.
Official check services within our Payment Systems segment compete primarily with financial institutions that have developed internal
processing capabilities or services similar to ours and do not outsource official check services. Competitors to our money order services
within our Payment Systems segment are largely the same competitors to our money order services within our Global Funds Transfer
segment.
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