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Coinstar to expand market with Travelex acquisition(Business World (Philippines) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) US-based retail service provider Coinstar Inc., has dipped its hands into the Asian money transfer market, including the Philippines, with its recent acquisition of Travelex Money Transfer Limited. Coinstar, a NASDAQ-listed company established in Seattle, Washington in 1994, offers solutions to the front-end needs of retailers consisting of self-service coin counting, electronic payment solutions, amusement vending and self-service DVD rental. Steve Verleye, senior vice-president and general manager of Coinstar, said the acquisition of Travelex last May had expanded the firm's market, which was predominant only in the US, Canada, United Kingdom and Puerto Rico. "Our strategy was to expand our services to retailers and banks on a global basis... The whole Asian corridor is very important to us," he said in an interview. The Asian remittance market is seen to account for 40% of Coinstar's total inbound remittance business, with 15% of this coming from the Philippines, Mr. Verleye said. Coinstar, through Travelex, recently forged partnerships with major remittance industry players, including Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., Bank of Commerce, Rural Bank of the Philippines and Cebuana Lhuillier Services Corp. "The Philippines is the third largest market in the world for money remittance. So overtime, we expect that certainly, it would be one of the top three countries for us as well," Mr. Verleye said. The Philippines trails behind India and Mexico in terms of money remittances, with the central bank projecting dollar remittances from overseas Filipino workers to hit $13.5 billion this year, close to $12 billion or 89% of which is expected to be coursed through the banking system. Apart from the entry into the Asian money remittance business, the acquisition of Travelex would serve as a takeoff point for Coinstar's introduction of its other products into the region, Mr. Verleye said. "Our initial focus is to use the [Travelex] management team in our business and obviously grow our money transfer business. We also intend to use that as the foundation for adding other Coinstar services in those other countries, like DVD rental, other electronic payment products like prepaid mobile tap-up, prepaid debit cards. On the longer term, it is our intention to use this acquisition as basis for our international expansion," Coinstar's top executive said. Mohit Davar, chief executive officer of Travelex, noted that with $27 million in fresh inflow from Coinstar, Travelex would be firming up its IT infrastructure and marketing. "The biggest opportunity we have at Coinstar is that they have access to 65,000 locations in the US, the largest transfer market in the world," Mr. Davar said. |