Bringing financial peace of mind to the United Nations community

Overview

The United Nations Federal Credit Union (UNFCU) was founded in 1947 by 13 United Nations employees. Today, UNFCU serves the financial needs of more than 180,000 members of the UN community worldwide. As a member-owned co-operative, UNFCU provides its members with financial peace of mind so they can focus on their work and loved ones. To this end, the credit union develops secure solutions tailored to the unique needs of its members, many of whom live outside the United States.

Challenges

Many UNFCU members frequently transfer money to their family and friends around the world. The transfers can be costly and can take time, depending on the number of intermediate banks needed to complete the transfer. UNFCU wanted to provide a convenient, secure, fast, and affordable transfer solution, especially for members in remote locations dealing with crisis situations.

Our Solution

UNFCU partnered with Thunes to provide mobile money transfers for its members in emerging markets, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America. With this solution, members can transfer money from their UNFCU account to a secure electronic account linked to their recipient’s mobile phone number.

As of December 2021, mobile money transfers are available to UNFCU members in 17 countries: Bangladesh, Burundi, Ethiopia, Fiji, Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Nepal, Rwanda, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, and Zambia.

Results

Since the launch of the UNFCU & Thunes partnership in February 2020, the UNFCU transaction volume for mobile money transfers has grown by 104% through year-end 2021.