Document
UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
_______________________________
FORM 10-K
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þ | ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
| For the fiscal year ended: December 31, 2016 |
OR
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¨ | TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
| For the transition period from to |
Commission File Number: 001-32903
THE WESTERN UNION COMPANY
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
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DELAWARE | | 20-4531180 |
(State or Other Jurisdiction of Incorporation or Organization) | | (I.R.S. Employer Identification No.) |
THE WESTERN UNION COMPANY
12500 East Belford Avenue
Englewood, Colorado 80112
(Address of principal executive offices)
Registrant's telephone number, including area code: (866) 405-5012
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
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Title of each class | | Name of each exchange on which registered |
Common Stock, $0.01 Par Value | | The New York Stock Exchange |
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:
None
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes þ No ¨
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act. Yes ¨ No þ
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes þ No ¨
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes þ No ¨
Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant's knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. ¨
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of "large accelerated filer," "accelerated filer" and "smaller reporting company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
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Large accelerated filer þ | | Accelerated filer ¨ | | Non-accelerated filer ¨ (Do not check if a smaller reporting company) | | Smaller reporting company ¨ |
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes ¨ No þ
As of June 30, 2016, the aggregate market value of the registrant's common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant was approximately $9.3 billion based on the closing sale price of $19.18 of the common stock as reported on the New York Stock Exchange.
As of February 15, 2017, 480,903,608 shares of the registrant's common stock were outstanding.
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
Portions of the Registrant's proxy statement for the 2017 annual meeting of stockholders are incorporated into Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
INDEX
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Item 1B. | | |
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Item 3. | | |
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Item 4. | | |
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Item 5. | | |
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Item 6. | | |
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Item 7. | | |
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Item 7A. | | |
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Item 8. | | |
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Item 9. | | |
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Item 9A. | | |
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Item 9B. | | |
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Item 10. | | |
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Item 11. | | |
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Item 12. | | |
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Item 13. | | |
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Item 14. | | |
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Item 15. | | |
PART I
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Annual Report on Form 10-K and materials we have filed or will file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (as well as information included in our other written or oral statements) contain or will contain certain statements that are forward-looking within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, our forward-looking statements. Words such as "expects," "intends," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "guides," "provides guidance," "provides outlook" and other similar expressions or future or conditional verbs such as "may," "will," "should," "would," "could," and "might" are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Readers of the Annual Report on Form 10-K of The Western Union Company (the "Company," "Western Union," "we," "our" or "us") should not rely solely on the forward-looking statements and should consider all uncertainties and risks discussed in the "Risk Factors" section and throughout the Annual Report on Form 10-K. The statements are only as of the date they are made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement.
Possible events or factors that could cause results or performance to differ materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements include the following:
Events Related to Our Business and Industry
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• | changes in general economic conditions and economic conditions in the regions and industries in which we operate, including global economic and trade downturns, or significantly slower growth or declines in the money transfer, payment service, and other markets in which we operate, including downturns or declines related to interruptions in migration patterns, or non-performance by our banks, lenders, insurers, or other financial services providers; |
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• | failure to compete effectively in the money transfer and payment service industry, including among other things, with respect to price, with global and niche or corridor money transfer providers, banks and other money transfer and payment service providers, including electronic, mobile and Internet-based services, card associations, and card-based payment providers, and with digital currencies and related protocols, and other innovations in technology and business models; |
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• | political conditions and related actions in the United States and abroad which may adversely affect our business and economic conditions as a whole, including interruptions of United States or other government relations with countries in which we have or are implementing significant business relationships with agents or clients; |
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• | deterioration in customer confidence in our business, or in money transfer and payment service providers generally; |
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• | our ability to adopt new technology and develop and gain market acceptance of new and enhanced services in response to changing industry and consumer needs or trends; |
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• | changes in, and failure to manage effectively, exposure to foreign exchange rates, including the impact of the regulation of foreign exchange spreads on money transfers and payment transactions; |
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• | any material breach of security, including cybersecurity, or safeguards of or interruptions in any of our systems or those of our vendors or other third parties; |
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• | cessation of or defects in various services provided to us by third-party vendors; |
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• | mergers, acquisitions and integration of acquired businesses and technologies into our Company, and the failure to realize anticipated financial benefits from these acquisitions, and events requiring us to write down our goodwill; |
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• | failure to manage credit and fraud risks presented by our agents, clients and consumers; |
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• | failure to maintain our agent network and business relationships under terms consistent with or more advantageous to us than those currently in place, including due to increased costs or loss of business as a result of increased compliance requirements or difficulty for us, our agents or their subagents in establishing or maintaining relationships with banks needed to conduct our services; |
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• | decisions to change our business mix; |
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• | changes in tax laws, or their interpretation, and unfavorable resolution of tax contingencies; |
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• | adverse rating actions by credit rating agencies; |
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• | our ability to realize the anticipated benefits from business transformation, productivity and cost-savings, and other related initiatives, which may include decisions to downsize or to transition operating activities from one location to another, and to minimize any disruptions in our workforce that may result from those initiatives; |
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• | our ability to protect our brands and our other intellectual property rights and to defend ourselves against potential intellectual property infringement claims; |
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• | our ability to attract and retain qualified key employees and to manage our workforce successfully; |
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• | material changes in the market value or liquidity of securities that we hold; |
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• | restrictions imposed by our debt obligations; |
Events Related to Our Regulatory and Litigation Environment
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• | liabilities or loss of business resulting from a failure by us, our agents or their subagents to comply with laws and regulations and regulatory or judicial interpretations thereof, including laws and regulations designed to protect consumers, or detect and prevent money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud and other illicit activity; |
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• | increased costs or loss of business due to regulatory initiatives and changes in laws, regulations and industry practices and standards, including changes in interpretations in the United States, the European Union and globally, affecting us, our agents or their subagents, or the banks with which we or our agents maintain bank accounts needed to provide our services, including related to anti-money laundering regulations, anti-fraud measures, our licensing arrangements, customer due diligence, agent and subagent due diligence, registration and monitoring requirements, consumer protection requirements, remittances, and immigration; |
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• | liabilities, increased costs or loss of business and unanticipated developments resulting from governmental investigations and consent agreements with or enforcement actions by regulators, including those associated with compliance with or failure to comply with the settlement agreement with the State of Arizona, as amended, or with the settlement agreements with the United States Department of Justice, certain United States Attorney's Offices, the United States Federal Trade Commission, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the United States Department of Treasury, and various state attorneys general (the "Joint Settlement Agreements"); |
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• | the impact on our business from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the "Dodd-Frank Act"), as well as regulations issued pursuant to it and the actions of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and similar legislation and regulations enacted by other governmental authorities related to consumer protection; |
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• | liabilities resulting from litigation, including class-action lawsuits and similar matters, and regulatory actions, including costs, expenses, settlements and judgments; |
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• | failure to comply with regulations and evolving industry standards regarding consumer privacy and data use and security; |
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• | effects of unclaimed property laws; |
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• | failure to maintain sufficient amounts or types of regulatory capital or other restrictions on the use of our working capital to meet the changing requirements of our regulators worldwide; |
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• | changes in accounting standards, rules and interpretations or industry standards affecting our business; |
Other Events
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• | adverse tax consequences from our spin-off from First Data Corporation; |
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• | catastrophic events; and |
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• | management's ability to identify and manage these and other risks. |
ITEM 1. BUSINESS
Overview
The Western Union Company (the "Company," "Western Union," "we," "our" or "us") is a leader in global money movement and payment services, providing people and businesses with fast, reliable and convenient ways to send money and make payments around the world. The Company was incorporated in Delaware as a wholly-owned subsidiary of First Data Corporation ("First Data") on February 17, 2006, and on September 29, 2006, First Data distributed all of its money transfer and consumer payments businesses and its interest in a Western Union money transfer agent, as well as its related assets, including real estate, through a tax-free distribution to First Data shareholders (the "Spin-off").
The Western Union® brand is globally recognized and represents speed, reliability, trust and convenience. As people move and travel around the world, they are able to use the services of a well-recognized brand to transfer funds. Our Consumer-to-Consumer money transfer service enables people to send money around the world, usually within minutes. As of December 31, 2016, our services were available through a global network of over 550,000 agent locations in more than 200 countries and territories, with approximately 90% of those locations outside the United States. Each location in our agent network is capable of providing one or more of our services, with the majority offering a Western Union branded service. As of December 31, 2016, more than 70% of our locations had experienced money transfer activity in the previous 12 months.
We also provide consumers with flexible and convenient options for making one-time or recurring payments in our Consumer-to-Business segment. This segment primarily consists of United States bill payments and Pago Fácil-branded bill payments in Argentina.
The Business Solutions segment facilitates payment and foreign exchange solutions, primarily cross-border, cross-currency transactions, for small and medium size enterprises and other organizations and individuals. The majority of the segment's business relates to exchanges of currency at spot rates, which enable customers to make cross-currency payments. In addition, in certain countries, we write foreign currency forward and option contracts for customers to facilitate future payments.
We believe that brand strength, size and reach of our global network, convenience, reliability and value for the price paid have been important to the growth of our business. As we continue to seek to meet the needs of our customers for fast, reliable and convenient global money movement and payment services, we are also working to enhance our services, with a continued focus on regulatory compliance, and provide consumers and our business clients with access to an expanding portfolio of payment and other financial services and to expand the ways our services can be accessed.
Our Segments
We manage our business around the consumers and businesses we serve and the types of services we offer. Each of our three segments addresses a different combination of customer groups, distribution networks and services offered. Our segments are Consumer-to-Consumer, Consumer-to-Business and Business Solutions. Businesses not considered part of these segments are categorized as "Other" and include our money order and other services, in addition to costs for the review and closing of acquisitions.
The table below presents the components of our consolidated revenue:
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| Year Ended December 31, |
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Consumer-to-Consumer | 79 | % | | 79 | % | | 80 | % |
Consumer-to-Business | 12 | % | | 12 | % | | 11 | % |
Business Solutions | 7 | % | | 7 | % | | 7 | % |
Other | 2 | % | | 2 | % | | 2 | % |
| 100 | % | | 100 | % | | 100 | % |
No individual country outside the United States accounted for more than approximately 7% of our consolidated revenue for each of the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014.
For additional details regarding our Consumer-to-Consumer, Consumer-to-Business and Business Solutions segments, including financial information regarding our international and United States revenues and long-lived assets, see Part II, Item 7, Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, and Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 17, "Segments," in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
See Part I, Item 1A, Risk Factors, for a discussion of certain risks relating to our foreign operations.
Consumer-to-Consumer Segment
Individual money transfers from one consumer to another are the core of our business, representing 79% of our total consolidated revenues for 2016. A substantial majority of these transfers were cross-border transactions. We view our money transfer service as one interconnected global network where a money transfer can be sent from one location to another, around the world. The segment includes five geographic regions whose functions are limited to generating, managing and maintaining agent relationships and localized marketing activities. We include our online money transfer services initiated through Western Union branded websites ("westernunion.com") in our regions. By means of common processes and systems, these regions, including westernunion.com, create an interconnected network for consumer transactions, thereby constituting one global Consumer-to-Consumer money transfer business and one operating segment.
Although most remittances are sent from one of our agent locations worldwide, in some countries we offer the ability to initiate transactions from a Western Union branded website, including through mobile devices. All agent locations accept cash to initiate a transaction, and some also accept debit cards. We offer consumers several options to receive a money transfer. The vast majority of transfers are paid in cash at agent locations.
Operations
Our revenue in this segment is derived primarily from transaction fees and foreign exchange revenues paid by consumers to transfer money. These revenues vary by transaction based upon send and receive locations, the principal amount sent, speed of service, whether the money transfer involves different send and receive currencies, and the difference between the exchange rate set by us to the consumer and the rate available in the wholesale foreign exchange market, as applicable.
In a typical money transfer transaction, a consumer goes to one of our agent locations and provides information specifying, among other things, the name and other identifying information regarding the recipient, and delivers it, along with the principal amount of the money transfer and the fee, to the agent. Certain of these processes are streamlined for consumers who participate in our loyalty programs. The sending agent enters the transaction information into our money transfer system and the funds are made available for payment, usually within minutes. In some jurisdictions, the agent collects the principal and fees after the presentation of a written disclosure that generally identifies the exchange rate and all fees and charges associated with the transaction and the consumer has agreed to the transaction, as described in the disclosure. The recipient generally enters an agent location in the designated receiving area or country, presents identification, where applicable, and is paid the transferred amount. Recipients generally do not pay a fee. However, in limited circumstances, a tax may be imposed by the local government on the receipt of the money transfer, or a fee may be charged by the receiver's institution related to the use of an account. We determine the fee paid by the sender, which generally is based on the principal amount of the transaction and the send and receive locations.
We generally pay our agents a commission based on a percentage of revenue. A commission is usually paid to both the agent that initiated the transaction, the "send agent," and the agent that paid the transaction, the "receive agent." For most agents, the costs of providing the physical infrastructure and staff are typically covered by the agent's primary business (e.g., postal services, banking, check cashing, travel and retail businesses), making the economics of being a Western Union agent attractive. Western Union's global reach and large consumer base allow us to attract agents we believe to be of high quality.
To complement the convenience offered by our network's global physical locations, in certain countries we have also made our services available through other channels, as described below under "Services."
No individual country outside the United States accounted for greater than 7% of this segment's revenue during all periods presented.
Services
We offer money transfer services in more than 200 countries and territories, with a number of options for sending funds that provide consumers convenience and choice, through both our walk-in and online money transfer channels.
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• | Walk-in money transfer. The substantial majority of our remittances constitute walk-in transactions in which payment is collected by one of our agents and is available for pick-up at another agent location, usually within minutes. Additionally, in a few select markets, we offer consumers a lower-priced next day delivery service option for money transfers that do not need to be received within minutes. |
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• | Online money transfer. In certain countries, consumers can initiate a money transfer from a Western Union branded website, including through their mobile devices. As of December 31, 2016, we were providing online money transfer services through Western Union branded websites in 37 countries. Additionally, in certain countries, consumers can initiate a Western Union money transfer through their bank’s online banking services. |
Consumers can fund a transaction in a variety of ways, in addition to cash. For example, at certain of our agent locations, consumers can fund a transaction using a debit card, and, where available, consumers can fund a money transfer from an account and through an account using an automated teller machine ("ATM"). In our online money transfer channel, consumers can generally fund transactions using a credit card, debit card, electronic funds transfer processed through the automated clearing house ("ACH") payment system, or other bank account-based payment.
We also provide several options for the receipt of funds. At our retail agent locations, consumers generally receive payments in cash. However, in certain countries, our retail agents may also issue a money order or check or provide payout through an ATM. Funds can also be directed to a bank account in many countries, by either the sender or receiver, and in more limited circumstances, can be directed to either a mobile wallet or a stored-value card.
Distribution and Marketing Channels
We offer our Consumer-to-Consumer service to consumers around the world primarily through our global network of third-party agents in most countries and territories, with approximately 90% of our agent locations being located outside the United States. Our agents facilitate the global distribution and convenience associated with our brands, which in turn helps create demand for our services, and helps us to recruit and retain agents. Western Union agents include large networks such as post offices, banks and retailers, and other established organizations as well as smaller independent retail locations which typically provide other consumer products and services. Many of our agents have multiple locations. Our agents know the markets that they serve and work with our management to develop business plans for their markets. In some regions, our agents contribute financial resources to, or otherwise support, our efforts to market our services. Many agents operate in locations that are open outside of traditional banking hours, for example on nights and weekends. Our top 40 agents globally have been with us an average of approximately 21 years and in 2016, these long-standing agents were involved in transactions that generated approximately 60% of our Consumer-to-Consumer revenue. No individual agent accounted for greater than 10% of the segment's revenue during all periods presented.
We provide our third-party agents with access to our multi-currency, real-time money transfer processing systems which are used to originate and pay money transfers. Our systems and processes enable our agents to pay money transfers in approximately 130 currencies worldwide. Certain of our agents can pay in multiple currencies at a single location. Our agents provide the physical infrastructure and staff required to complete the transfers. Western Union provides central operating functions such as transaction processing, settlement, marketing support and consumer relationship management to our agents, as well as compliance training and related support. Some of our agents outside the United States manage subagents. We refer to these agents as superagents. Although the subagents are under contract with these superagents (and not with Western Union directly), the subagent locations typically have access to similar technology and services as our other agent locations. Our international agents often customize services as appropriate for their geographic markets. In some markets, individual agents are independently offering specific services such as stored-value card or account payout options. While we typically perform services under the Western Union brand, in certain geographic regions, we operate under other brands targeted to the local market.
We market our services to consumers in a number of ways, directly and indirectly through our agent partners, leveraging promotional activities, grassroots and digital advertising, and loyalty programs. Our marketing strategy includes our consumer programs such as "My WUSM" and "Gold Card," which are available in many countries and territories. These programs offer consumers faster service at the point-of-sale. Additionally, in certain countries and at westernunion.com, consumers can earn points that can be redeemed for rewards, such as reduced transaction fees or cash back; however, such redemption activity has been insignificant to the results of our operations.
Industry Trends
Trends in the cross-border money transfer business tend to correlate to migration trends, global economic opportunity and related employment levels worldwide. Another significant trend impacting the money transfer industry is increasing regulation. Regulations in the United States and elsewhere focus, in part, on anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing and consumer protection. Regulations require money transfer providers, banks and other financial institutions to develop systems to prevent, detect, monitor and report certain transactions. Such regulations increase the costs to provide money transfer services and can make it more difficult or less desirable for consumers and others to use money transfer services, either of which could have an adverse effect on money transfer providers' revenues and operating income. For further discussion of the regulatory impact on our business, see the "Regulation" discussion in this section, Part I, Item 1A, Risk Factors, and the "Enhanced Regulatory Compliance" section in Part II, Item 7, Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations. Additionally, our ability to enter into or maintain exclusive arrangements with our agents has been and may continue to be challenged by both regulators and certain of our current and prospective agents. Further, we are seeing increased competition from, and increased market acceptance of, electronic, mobile, and Internet-based money transfer services as well as digital currencies.
Competition
We face robust competition in the highly-fragmented Consumer-to-Consumer money transfer industry. We compete with a variety of remittance providers, including:
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• | Global money transfer providers - Global money transfer providers allow consumers to send money to a wide variety of locations, in both their home countries and abroad. |
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• | Regional money transfer providers - Regional money transfer providers, or "niche" providers, provide the same services as global money transfer providers, but focus on a smaller group of geographic corridors or services within one region, such as North America to the Caribbean, Central or South America, or Western Europe to North Africa. |
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• | Electronic channels - Online money transfer service providers, including certain electronic payment providers, allow consumers to send and receive money electronically using the Internet or through mobile devices. Electronic channels also include digital wallets, digital currencies, and social media and other predominantly communication or commerce oriented platforms that offer money transfer services. |
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• | Banks, postbanks, and post offices - Banks, postbanks, and post offices of all sizes compete with us in a number of ways, including bank wire services, payment instrument issuances, and card-based services. |
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• | Informal networks - Informal networks enable people to transfer funds without formal mechanisms and often without compliance with government reporting requirements. We believe that such networks comprise a significant share of the market. |
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• | Alternative channels - Alternative channels for sending and receiving money include mail and commercial courier services, and card-based options, such as ATM cards and stored-value cards. |
We believe the most significant competitive factors in Consumer-to-Consumer remittances relate to the overall consumer value proposition, including brand recognition, trust, reliability, consumer experience, price, speed of delivery, distribution network, variety of send and receive payment methods, and channel options.
Consumer-to-Business Segment
In our Consumer-to-Business segment, which represented 12% of our total consolidated revenues for 2016, we provide fast and convenient options to make one-time or recurring payments from consumers to businesses and other organizations, including utilities, auto finance companies, mortgage servicers, financial service providers and government agencies. We believe our business customers who receive payments through our services benefit from their relationship with Western Union as it provides them with real-time or near real-time posting of their customers' payments. In many circumstances, our relationships with business customers also provide them with an additional source of income and reduce their expenses for handling of payments.
Operations
Our revenue in this segment is derived primarily from transaction fees paid by consumers and billers. The transaction fees are typically less than the fees charged in our Consumer-to-Consumer segment. Consumers may make a cash payment at an agent or Company-owned location or may make an electronic payment on the Internet or over the phone using their credit or debit card, or through ACH. Our Internet services are provided through our own websites, including through mobile devices, or in partnership with other websites for which we act as the service provider. The significant majority of the segment's revenue was generated in the United States during all periods presented, with the remainder primarily generated in Argentina.
Services
Our Consumer-to-Business payments services are available through a variety of options that give consumers choices as to the payment channel and method of payment, and include the following:
Speedpay®. Our Speedpay service allows consumers to make payments to a variety of United States-based businesses using credit cards, debit cards, ACH and in limited situations, checks. Payments are initiated through the Internet or over the phone.
Pago Fácil®. In South America, we offer walk-in, cash bill payment services which allow consumers to make payments for services such as phone, utilities and other recurring bills. In Argentina, we provide this service under the Pago Fácil brand, which constitutes the vast majority of our Consumer-to-Business services in South America. We offer this service under the Western Union brand in Peru and Panama.
Western Union Payments. The Western Union Payments service, which includes our Quick Collect® service, allows consumers to send funds to businesses and government agencies, primarily across the United States and Canada, using cash and, in certain locations, a debit card. This service is offered primarily at Western Union agent locations, but is provided via our westernunion.com website in limited situations. This service is also offered in select international locations under the service mark Quick PaySM. We also offer Quick Cash®, a cash disbursement service used by businesses, government agencies, and financial institutions primarily to send money to employees or individuals with whom they have accounts or other business relationships. Consumers also use our Western Union Convenience Pay® ("Convenience Pay") service to send payments by cash or check from a smaller number of Convenience Pay agent locations in the United States primarily to utilities and telecommunication providers.
Distribution and Marketing Channels
Our electronic consumer payment services are available primarily through the phone and via the Internet, including through certain mobile devices, while our cash-based consumer services are available through our agent networks and at select Company-owned locations that are primarily in South America.
Businesses market our services to consumers in a number of ways. We market our services directly to consumers and billers using a variety of means, including advertising materials, promotional activities, call campaigns and attendance at trade shows and seminars. Our Internet services are marketed to consumers on our websites, on the websites of our partners who offer our payment solutions, or through co-branding arrangements with these partners.
Our relationships with consumers and businesses are a core component of our Consumer-to-Business payments services. No individual consumer or business accounted for greater than 10% of this segment's revenue during all periods presented.
Industry Trends
The payments industry has evolved with technological innovations that have created new methods of processing payments from consumers to businesses. The various services within the payments industry are in varying stages of development outside the United States. We believe that the United States is moving toward electronic payment methods through the use of multiple technologies, and away from cash and paper checks for bill payments.
Competition
Western Union competes with a diverse set of service providers offering both cash and electronic-based payment solutions. Competition in electronic payment services includes financial institutions (which may offer consumer bill payment in their own name, or may "host" payment services operated under the names of their clients) and other non-bank competitors. Competition for electronic payments also includes businesses offering their own or third-party services to their own customers and third-party providers of all sizes offering services directly to consumers. Competitors for cash payments include businesses that allow consumers to pay a bill at one of their locations, or at the location of a partner business, as well as mail and courier services. The ongoing trend away from cash-based bill payments in the United States and competitive pressures, which result in lower cash-based bill payment volumes and also result in a shift to lower revenue per transaction services, continues to impact this business.
We believe the most significant competitive factors in this segment relate to customer service, trust and reliability, convenience, speed, price, variety of payment methods, biller relationships and service offerings, innovation, technology, and brand recognition.
Business Solutions Segment
In our Business Solutions segment, which represented 7% of our total consolidated revenues for 2016, we facilitate payment and foreign exchange solutions, primarily cross-border, cross-currency transactions, for small and medium size enterprises and other organizations and individuals.
Operations
The substantial majority of our revenue in this segment is derived from foreign exchange resulting from the difference between the exchange rate set by us to the customer and the rate available in the wholesale foreign exchange market. Customers may make an electronic or wire transfer or remit a check in order to initiate a transaction. Our Internet services are provided through our own websites and also, from time to time, in conjunction with others. The significant majority of the segment's revenue was generated outside the United States during all periods presented.
Services
Business Solutions payment transactions are conducted through various channels including the phone and via the Internet. Additionally, in 2016, we implemented our digital platform, WU® EDGE, which facilitates cross-border payments between businesses. Payments are made predominately through electronic transfers, but in some situations, checks are remitted. The majority of Business Solutions' business relates to exchanges of currency at spot rates, which enable customers to make cross-currency payments. For certain payment services such as for law firms and educational institution payments, we provide tailored payment solutions. In addition, in certain countries, we write foreign currency forward and option contracts for customers to facilitate future payments, which usually generate higher revenue per transaction than spot payments.
Distribution and Marketing Channels
Our Business Solutions services are primarily offered over the phone, through partner channels, and via the Internet. Our Internet services are marketed through our own websites as well as, from time to time, co-branding arrangements with website partners.
Our customer relationships are a core component of our business payments services. No individual customer accounted for greater than 10% of this segment's revenue.
Industry Trends
The business-to-business payments industry has evolved with technological innovations that have created new methods of processing payments from businesses to other businesses. The various products and services within the business-to-business payments industry are in varying stages of development. Increased anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing, consumer protection regulations and compliance requirements, and increased regulations and compliance requirements applicable to the offering of derivatives, are impacting the business-to-business payments industry and will likely continue to result in increased costs in this segment.
Competition
Western Union competes with a diverse set of service providers offering payment services and foreign exchange risk management solutions, including financial institutions, other non-bank competitors, and electronic payment providers. We believe the most significant competitive factors in this segment relate to recurring relationships founded on customer service and expertise in payments and foreign exchange, customized solutions for specific industries and clients, convenience and speed of payments network, availability of derivative products, variety of inbound and outbound payment methods, brand recognition and price.
Other
Our remaining businesses, including our money order services, are grouped in the "Other" category, which also includes costs for the review and closing of acquisitions.
Consumers use our money orders for making purchases, paying bills, and as an alternative to checks. We derive investment income from interest generated on our money order settlement assets, which are primarily held in United States tax exempt state and municipal debt securities.
Intellectual Property
The Western Union logos, trademarks, service marks and trade dress are registered and/or used worldwide and are material to our Company. The WU® service mark and logos are also registered and used in many countries around the world. We offer money transfer services under the Western Union, Orlandi ValutaSM and Vigo® brands. We also provide various payment and other services such as Western Union Payments, Quick Collect, Convenience Pay, Quick Pay, Quick Cash, Speedpay, Pago Fácil (registered in Argentina), and Western Union Business Solutions.
Our operating results over the past several years have allowed us to invest significantly each year to support our brands. In 2016, we invested approximately $195 million to market, advertise and promote our brands and services, including costs of dedicated marketing personnel. In some regions, our agents have also contributed financial resources to assist with marketing our services.
Risk Management
Our Company has a credit risk management department that evaluates and monitors our credit and fraud risks. We are exposed to credit risk related to receivable balances from agents in the money transfer, walk-in bill payment and money order settlement process. We also are exposed to credit risk directly from consumer and business transactions, particularly where transactions are originated through means other than cash, such as those initiated through electronic channels, and therefore are subject to "chargebacks," insufficient funds, or other collection impediments, such as fraud, which are anticipated to increase as electronic channels become a greater proportion of our business. Our credit risk management team monitors fraud risks jointly with our information security and global compliance departments, performs credit reviews before each agent signing, and conducts periodic analyses of agents and certain other parties which we transact with directly.
We are exposed to additional credit risk in our Business Solutions business relating to: (a) derivatives written by us to our customers and (b) the extension of trade credit when transactions are paid to recipients prior to our receiving cleared funds from the sending customers. For the derivatives, the duration of these contracts at inception is generally less than one year. The credit risk associated with our derivative contracts increases when foreign currency exchange rates move against our customers, possibly impacting their ability to honor their obligations to deliver currency to us or to maintain appropriate collateral with us. For those receivables where we have offered trade credit, collection ordinarily occurs within a few days. To mitigate risk associated with potential customer defaults, we perform credit reviews on an ongoing basis, and, for our derivatives, we may require certain customers to post or increase collateral.
To manage our exposures to credit risk with respect to investment securities, money market fund investments, derivatives and other credit risk exposures resulting from our relationships with banks and financial institutions, we regularly review investment concentrations, trading levels, credit spreads and credit ratings, and we attempt to diversify our investments among global financial institutions.
A key component of the Western Union business model is our ability to manage financial risk associated with conducting transactions worldwide. We currently settle with the majority of our agents in United States dollars or euros, requiring those agents to obtain local currency to pay recipients, and we generally do not rely on international currency markets to obtain and pay illiquid currencies. However, in certain circumstances, we settle in other currencies. The foreign currency exposure that does exist is limited by the fact that the majority of money transfer transactions are paid by the next day after they are initiated and agent settlements occur within a few days in most instances. We also utilize foreign currency forward contracts, to mitigate the risks associated with currency fluctuations and to provide predictability of future cash flows. We have additional foreign exchange risk and associated foreign exchange risk management due to the nature of our Business Solutions business. The majority of this business' revenue is from exchanges of currency at spot rates, which enable customers to make cross-currency payments. Business Solutions aggregates its foreign exchange exposures arising from customer contracts, including the derivative contracts described above, and hedges the resulting net currency risks by entering into offsetting contracts with established financial institution counterparties.
Our financial results may fluctuate due to changes in interest rates. We review our overall exposure to floating and fixed rates by evaluating our net asset or liability position in each, also considering the duration of the individual positions. We manage this mix of fixed versus floating exposure in an attempt to minimize risk, reduce costs and improve returns. Our exposure to interest rates can be modified by changing the mix of our interest-bearing assets as well as adjusting the mix of fixed versus floating rate debt. The latter is accomplished primarily through the use of interest rate swaps and the decision regarding terms of any new debt issuances (i.e., fixed versus floating). We use interest rate swaps designated as hedges to increase the percentage of floating rate debt, subject to market conditions.
International Investment
No provision has been made for United States federal and state income taxes on certain of our outside tax basis differences, which primarily relate to accumulated foreign earnings of approximately $6.7 billion as of December 31, 2016, as we have reinvested and expect to continue to reinvest these earnings outside the United States indefinitely. Over the last several years, such earnings have been used to pay for our international acquisitions and operations and provide initial Company funding of global principal payouts for Consumer-to-Consumer and Business Solutions transactions. However, if we are unable to utilize accumulated earnings outside the United States, and we repatriate these earnings to the United States in the form of actual or constructive dividends, we would be subject to significant United States federal income taxes (subject to an adjustment for foreign tax credits), state income taxes and possible withholding taxes payable to various foreign countries.
Regulation
Our business is subject to a wide range of laws and regulations enacted by the United States federal government, each of the states, many localities and many other countries and jurisdictions, including the European Union. These include increasingly strict legal and regulatory requirements intended to help detect and prevent money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud, and other illicit activity. These also include laws and regulations regarding financial services, consumer disclosure and consumer protection, currency controls, money transfer and payment instrument licensing, payment services, credit and debit cards, electronic payments, foreign exchange hedging services and the sale of spot, forward and option currency contracts, unclaimed property, the regulation of competition, consumer privacy, data protection and information security. Failure by Western Union, our agents, or their subagents (agents and subagents are third parties, over whom Western Union has limited legal and practical control), and certain of our service providers to comply with any of these requirements or their interpretation could result in the suspension or revocation of a license or registration required to provide money transfer services and/or payment services or foreign exchange products, the limitation, suspension or termination of services, changes to our business model, loss of consumer confidence, private class action litigation, the seizure of our assets, and/or the imposition of civil and criminal penalties, including fines and restrictions on our ability to offer services. For example, we recently entered into the Joint Settlement Agreements, as further discussed in Part I, Item 3, Legal Proceedings, and Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 5, "Commitments and Contingencies."
We have developed and continue to enhance our global compliance programs, including our anti-money laundering program comprised of policies, procedures, systems and internal controls to monitor and to address various legal and regulatory requirements. In addition, we continue to adapt our business practices and strategies to help us comply with current and evolving legal standards and industry practices, including heightened regulatory focus on compliance with anti-money laundering or fraud prevention requirements. As of December 31, 2016, these programs included approximately 2,300 dedicated compliance personnel, training and monitoring programs, suspicious activity reporting, regulatory outreach and education, and support and guidance to our agent network on regulatory compliance. Our money transfer and payment service networks operate through third-party agents in most countries, and, therefore, there are limitations on our legal and practical ability to completely control those agents' compliance activities. In 2016, we spent approximately $195 million on our compliance and regulatory programs.
Money Transfer and Payment Instrument Licensing and Regulation
Most of our services are subject to anti-money laundering laws and regulations, including the Bank Secrecy Act in the United States, as amended (collectively, the "BSA"), and similar laws and regulations. The BSA, among other things, requires money transfer companies and the issuers and sellers of money orders to develop and implement risk-based anti-money laundering programs, to report large cash transactions and suspicious activity, and in some cases, to collect and maintain information about consumers who use their services and maintain other transaction records. In addition to United States federal laws and regulations, many other countries and states impose similar and, in some cases, more stringent requirements. These requirements may also apply to our agents and their subagents. In addition, the United States Department of the Treasury has interpreted the BSA to require money transfer companies to conduct due diligence into and risk-based monitoring of their agents and subagents inside and outside the United States, and certain states also require money transfer companies to conduct similar due diligence reviews. Compliance with anti-money laundering laws and regulations continues to be a focus of regulatory attention, with recent settlement agreements being reached with Western Union, other money transfer providers and several large financial institutions. For example, we recently entered into the Joint Settlement Agreements, as further discussed in Part I, Item 3, Legal Proceedings, and Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 5, "Commitments and Contingencies."
Economic and trade sanctions programs administered by the United States Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") and by certain foreign jurisdictions prohibit or restrict transactions to or from (or dealings with or involving) certain countries, their governments, and in certain circumstances, their nationals, as well as with certain individuals and entities such as narcotics traffickers, terrorists and terrorist organizations. We provide limited money transfer and payments services to individuals in Cuba, Syria and Sudan in accordance with United States laws authorizing such services and pursuant to and as authorized by advisory opinions of, or specific or general licenses issued by, OFAC.
In the United States, almost all states license certain of our services and many exercise authority over the operations of certain aspects of our business and, as part of this authority, regularly examine us. Many states require us to invest the principal of outstanding money orders, money transfers, or payments in highly-rated, investment grade securities, and our use of such investments is restricted to satisfying outstanding settlement obligations. We regularly monitor credit risk and attempt to mitigate our exposure by investing in highly-rated securities in compliance with these regulations. The substantial majority of our investment securities, classified within "Settlement assets" in the Consolidated Balance Sheets, are held in order to comply with state licensing requirements in the United States and are required to have credit ratings of "A-" or better from a major credit rating agency.
These licensing laws also cover matters such as government approval of controlling shareholders and senior management of our licensed entities, regulatory approval of agents and in some instances their locations, consumer disclosures and the filing of periodic reports by the licensee, and require the licensee to demonstrate and maintain certain net worth levels. Many states also require money transfer providers and their agents to comply with federal and/or state anti-money laundering laws and regulations.
Outside the United States, our money transfer business is subject to some form of regulation in almost all of the countries and territories in which we offer those services. These laws and regulations may include limitations on what types of entities may offer money transfer services, agent registration requirements, limitations on the amount of principal that can be sent into or out of a country, limitations on the number of money transfers that may be sent or received by a consumer and controls on the rates of exchange between currencies. They also include laws and regulations intended to detect and prevent money laundering or terrorist financing, including obligations to collect and maintain information about consumers, recordkeeping, reporting and due diligence, and supervision of agents and subagents similar to and in some cases exceeding those required under the BSA. In most countries, either we or our agents are required to obtain licenses or to register with a government authority in order to offer money transfer services.
The Payment Services Directive ("PSD") in the European Union ("EU") and similar laws in other jurisdictions have imposed rules on payment service providers like Western Union. In particular, under the PSD, Western Union is responsible for the regulatory compliance of our agents and their subagents who are engaged by one of our payments institution subsidiaries. Thus, the costs to monitor our agents and the risk of adverse regulatory action against us because of the actions of our agents in those areas have increased. The majority of our EU business, including our money transfer business in the United Kingdom, is managed through our Irish payment institution subsidiary, which is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Under the PSD and similar laws in certain other jurisdictions, we are subject to requirements such as investment safeguarding rules and periodic examinations similar to those we are subject to in the United States. These rules have resulted in increased compliance costs and may lead to increased competition in our areas of service. Additional countries may adopt legislation similar to these laws. The PSD, as well as legislation in other countries, has also allowed an increased number of non-bank entities to become money transfer agents, allowing Western Union and other money transfer providers to expand their agent networks in these countries but also resulting in increased competition. The PSD, which has been in force since 2009, was amended by a revised Payment Services Directive, known as PSD2. PSD2 became EU law in January 2016 and requires EU member states to transpose it into their national laws by January 2018. Among other changes, PSD2 will increase the supervisory powers granted to member states with respect to activities performed by Western Union and its agent network within their jurisdictions.
Regulators worldwide are exercising heightened supervision of money transfer providers and requiring increasing efforts to ensure compliance. As a result, we are experiencing increasing compliance costs related to customer, agent, and subagent due diligence, verification, transaction approval, disclosure, and reporting requirements, including requirements to report transaction data to a greater extent or frequency than previously required, along with other requirements that have had and will continue to have a negative impact on our financial condition and results of operations.
Government agencies both inside and outside the United States may impose new or additional rules on money transfers affecting us or our agents or their subagents, including regulations that:
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• | prohibit, restrict, and/or impose taxes or fees on money transfer transactions in, to or from certain countries or with certain governments, individuals and entities; |
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• | impose additional customer identification and customer, agent, and subagent due diligence requirements; |
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• | impose additional reporting or recordkeeping requirements, or require enhanced transaction monitoring; |
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• | limit the types of entities capable of providing money transfer services, impose additional licensing or registration requirements on us, our agents, or their subagents, or impose additional requirements on us with regard to selection or oversight of our agents or their subagents; |
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• | impose minimum capital or other financial requirements on us or our agents and their subagents; |
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• | limit or restrict the revenue which may be generated from money transfers, including transaction fees and revenue derived from foreign exchange; |
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• | require enhanced disclosures to our money transfer customers; |
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• | require the principal amount of money transfers originated in a country to be invested in that country or held in trust until they are paid; |
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• | limit the number or principal amount of money transfers which may be sent to or from the jurisdiction, whether by an individual, through one agent or in aggregate; |
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• | restrict or limit our ability to process transactions using centralized databases, for example, by requiring that transactions be processed using a database maintained in a particular country; and |
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• | prohibit or limit exclusive arrangements with our agents and subagents. |
Consumer Protection Regulations
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the "Dodd-Frank Act") became United States federal law in 2010. The Dodd-Frank Act created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the "CFPB") whose purpose is to implement, examine for compliance with and enforce federal consumer protection laws governing financial products and services, including money transfer services. The CFPB has created additional regulatory obligations for us and has the authority to examine and supervise us and our larger competitors, including for matters related to unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices. The CFPB's regulations implementing the remittance provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act have affected our business in a variety of areas. These include: a requirement to provide almost all consumers sending funds internationally from the United States enhanced, written, pre-transaction disclosures, including the disclosure of fees, foreign exchange rates and taxes, an obligation to resolve various errors, including certain errors that may be outside our control, and an obligation at a consumer's request to cancel transactions that have not been completed. We have modified certain of our systems, business practices, service offerings or procedures to comply with these regulations. We also face liability for the failure of our money transfer agents to comply with the rules and have implemented and are continuing to implement additional policies, procedures, and oversight measures designed to foster compliance by our agents. The extent of our, and our agents' implementation of these policies, procedures, and measures may be considered by the CFPB in any action or proceeding against us for noncompliance with the rules by our agents. The CFPB has also implemented a direct portal for gathering information regarding consumer complaints in the money transfer area. It is likely that this effort will lead to additional regulatory scrutiny.
Derivatives Regulations
Rules adopted under the Dodd-Frank Act by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the "CFTC"), as well as the provisions of the European Market Infrastructure Regulation and its technical standards, which are directly applicable in the member states of the European Union, have subjected most of our foreign exchange hedging transactions, including certain intercompany hedging transactions, certain of the corporate interest rate hedging transactions we may enter into in the future, and certain of the foreign exchange derivative contracts we offer as part of our Business Solutions segment, to reporting, recordkeeping, and other requirements. Additionally, certain of the corporate interest rate hedging transactions and foreign exchange derivatives transactions we may enter into in the future may be subject to centralized clearing requirements, or may be subject to margin requirements in the United States and European Union. Other jurisdictions outside the United States and the European Union are considering, have implemented, or are implementing regulations similar to those described above. Derivatives regulations have added costs to our business and any additional requirements, such as future registration requirements and increased regulation of derivative contracts, will result in additional costs or impact the way we conduct our hedging activities as well as impact how we conduct our business within our Business Solutions segment. In particular, the CFTC has recently issued a proposed rule that, if adopted as proposed, would increase the likelihood that we will have to register one or more of our subsidiaries with the CFTC as a swap dealer. Swap dealers are subject to a comprehensive regulatory framework and compliance with this framework will lead to additional costs, including costs relating to regulatory capital and margin requirements, and may impact how we conduct our hedging activities and derivatives business with customers. We are currently evaluating the impact the proposed rule, if adopted, would have on our hedging activities and operations. For further discussion of these risks, see Part I, Item 1A, Risk Factors - "The Dodd-Frank Act, as well as the regulations required by that Act and the actions of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and similar legislation and regulations enacted by other government authorities, could adversely affect us and the scope of our activities, and could adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows."
Unclaimed Property Regulations
Our Company is subject to unclaimed property laws in the United States and in certain other countries. These laws require us to turn over to certain government authorities the property of others held by our Company that has been unclaimed for a specified period of time, such as unpaid money transfers and money orders. We hold property subject to unclaimed property laws and we have an ongoing program designed to help us comply with these laws. We are subject to audits with regard to our escheatment practices.
Privacy Regulations and Information Security Standards
We must collect, transfer, disclose, use and store personal information in order to provide our services. These activities are subject to information security standards, data privacy, data breach and related laws and regulations in the United States, the EU, and many other countries in which we provide services.
In the United States, data privacy and data breach laws such as the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and various state laws apply directly to a broad range of financial institutions including money transfer providers like Western Union, and indirectly to companies that provide services to or on behalf of those institutions. The United States Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") has an on-going program of investigating the privacy practices of companies and has commenced enforcement actions against many, resulting in multimillion dollar settlements and multi-year agreements concerning companies' privacy practices. The FTC, CFPB, and several states have expanded their areas of concern to include privacy practices related to online and mobile applications. Many state laws require notification to be provided to affected individuals, state authorities and consumer reporting agencies, in the event of a breach of certain types of personal data contained in computer databases and in some cases physical documents, subject to varying requirements concerning compromise and potential harm. In addition, the Company is also subject to United States federal reporting requirements in connection with some such incidents.
Increasingly, the data privacy laws and regulations of countries outside the United States are having a more significant impact on our operations and the manner in which we provide our services. The EU has been particularly active in regulating the collection, transfer, disclosure, use and storage of personal information, and the EU's approach is frequently followed by other jurisdictions. Laws adopted pursuant to the EU's data privacy Directive 95/46, and other national and provincial laws throughout the world are frequently more restrictive than comparable laws in the United States and impose more stringent duties on us and other companies in our industry. As in the United States, areas of concern include online and mobile applications. These laws, which are not uniform, do one or more of the following: regulate the collection, transfer (including in some cases, the transfer outside the country of collection), processing, storage, use and disclosure of personal information, require notice to individuals of privacy practices, and give individuals certain access and correction rights with respect to their personal information and prevent the use or disclosure of personal information for secondary purposes such as marketing. Under certain circumstances, some of these laws require us to provide notification to affected individuals, data protection authorities and/or other regulators in the event of a data breach. The trend in this area is one of increasingly more stringent regulation, particularly in the EU. In April 2016, the European Parliament approved a comprehensive new General Data Privacy Regulation (“GDPR”) that will replace the EU’s 1995 data privacy Directive 95/46 in May 2018. The GDPR will impose additional obligations and risks upon our businesses, including the risk of substantially increased penalties for non-compliance. We also expect to incur significant expenses to meet the new obligations of the GDPR, which may require us to make significant changes to our business operations not only in the EU but also in the United States and other countries in which we provide services.
Data privacy regulations, laws and industry standards also impose requirements for safeguarding personal information through the issuance of internal data security standards, controls or guidelines. Western Union seeks to maintain and upgrade its systems and processes to protect the security of our computer systems, software, networks and other technology assets to help protect against the risks presented by hackers and other breaches. For further discussion of these risks, see Part I, Item 1A, Risk Factors - "Breaches of our information security policies or safeguards could adversely affect our ability to operate and could damage our reputation and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows."
In connection with regulatory requirements to assist in the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing and pursuant to legal obligations and authorizations, Western Union makes information available to certain United States federal, state, and foreign government agencies when required by law. In recent years, Western Union has experienced an increasing number of data sharing requests by these agencies, particularly in connection with efforts to prevent terrorist financing or reduce the risk of identity theft. During the same period, there has also been increased public attention to the corporate use and disclosure of personal information, accompanied by legislation and regulations intended to strengthen data protection, information security and consumer privacy. These regulatory goals - the prevention of money laundering, terrorist financing and identity theft and the protection of the individual's right to privacy - may conflict, and the law in these areas is not consistent or settled. While we believe that Western Union is compliant with its regulatory responsibilities in all material respects, the legal, political and business environments in these areas are rapidly changing, and subsequent legislation, regulation, litigation, court rulings or other events could expose Western Union to increased program costs, liability and reputational damage.
Banking Regulations
We have subsidiaries that operate under banking licenses granted by the Austrian Financial Market Authority and the Brazilian Central Bank. We are also subject to regulation, examination and supervision by the New York State Department of Financial Services (the "Financial Services Department"), which has regulatory authority over our entity that holds all interests in these subsidiaries. Further, an Agreement of Supervision with the Financial Services Department imposes various regulatory requirements including operational limitations, capital requirements, affiliate transaction limitations, and notice and reporting requirements on this entity and its subsidiaries. However, because this entity and its subsidiaries do not exercise banking powers in the United States, we are not subject to the Bank Holding Company Act in the United States.
Other
Some of our services are subject to card association rules and regulations. For example, an independent standards-setting organization, the Payment Card Industry ("PCI") Security Standards Council (including American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc. International) developed a set of comprehensive requirements concerning payment card account security through the transaction process, called the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard ("PCI DSS"). All merchants and service providers that store, process and transmit payment card data are required to comply with PCI DSS as a condition to accepting credit cards. We are subject to annual reviews to ensure compliance with PCI regulations worldwide and are subject to fines if we are found to be non-compliant.
Employees and Labor
As of December 31, 2016, our businesses employed approximately 10,700 employees, of which approximately 2,400 employees are located inside the United States.
Available Information
The Western Union Company is a Delaware corporation and its principal executive offices are located at 12500 East Belford Avenue, Englewood, CO, 80112, telephone (866) 405-5012. The Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to those reports are available free of charge through the "Investor Relations" portion of the Company's website, www.westernunion.com, as soon as reasonably practical after they are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). The SEC maintains a website, www.sec.gov, which contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information filed electronically with the SEC by the Company.
Executive Officers of the Registrant
As of February 22, 2017, our executive officers consist of the individuals listed below:
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Name | Age | Position |
Hikmet Ersek | 56 |
| President, Chief Executive Officer and Director |
Rajesh K. Agrawal | 51 |
| Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer |
Odilon Almeida | 55 |
| Executive Vice President, President - Global Money Transfer |
Elizabeth G. Chambers | 54 |
| Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy, Product, and Marketing Officer |
John R. Dye | 57 |
| Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary |
Jean Claude Farah | 46 |
| Executive Vice President, President - Global Payments |
J. David Thompson | 50 |
| Executive Vice President, Global Operations and Chief Information Officer |
Richard L. Williams | 51 |
| Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer |
Hikmet Ersek is our President and Chief Executive Officer (from September 2010) and a member of the Company's Board of Directors (from April 2010). From January 2010 to August 2010, Mr. Ersek served as the Company's Chief Operating Officer. Prior to January 2010, Mr. Ersek served as the Company's Executive Vice President and Managing Director, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific Region from December 2008. From September 2006 to December 2008, Mr. Ersek served as the Company's Executive Vice President and Managing Director, Europe/Middle East/Africa/South Asia. Prior to September 2006, Mr. Ersek held various positions of increasing responsibility with Western Union. Prior to joining Western Union in September 1999, Mr. Ersek was with GE Capital specializing in European payment systems and consumer finance.
Rajesh K. Agrawal is our Executive Vice President (from November 2011) and Chief Financial Officer (from July 2014) and served as Executive Vice President and Interim Chief Financial Officer from January 2014 to July 2014. Prior to January 2014, Mr. Agrawal served as President, Western Union Business Solutions from August 2011. Prior to August 2011, Mr. Agrawal served as General Manager, Business Solutions from November 2010, and as Senior Vice President of Finance for Business Units from August 2010 to November 2010. Previously, Mr. Agrawal served as Senior Vice President of Finance of the Company's Europe, Middle East, and Africa and Asia Pacific regions from July 2008 to August 2010, and as Senior Vice President and Treasurer of Western Union from June 2006 to May 2008. Mr. Agrawal joined Western Union in 2006. Prior to that time, Mr. Agrawal served as Treasurer and Vice President of Investor Relations at Deluxe Corporation, and worked at General Mills, Inc., Chrysler Corporation, and General Motors Corporation.
Odilon Almeida is our Executive Vice President and President, Global Money Transfer (from February 2017). From January 2014 to February 2017, Mr. Almeida served as Executive Vice President and President, Americas and European Union, and from January 2013 through December 2013, Mr. Almeida served as Senior Vice President and President for the Americas region for Western Union. Mr. Almeida joined Western Union in 2002 and has held roles of increasing responsibility, including Regional Vice President, Southern Cone, Americas from November 2002 to December 2005; Regional Vice President and Managing Director, South America region from January 2006 to November 2007; Senior Vice President and Managing Director, South America region from December 2007 to November 2010; and Senior Vice President and Managing Director for the Latin America and Caribbean region from December 2010 to December 2012. Prior to joining Western Union, Mr. Almeida worked at FleetBoston Financial, The Coca-Cola Company and Colgate-Palmolive in Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the United States. Mr. Almeida is a non-executive director of Millicom International Cellular S.A.
Elizabeth G. Chambers is our Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy, Product and Marketing Officer. Prior to taking this position in November 2015, Ms. Chambers was Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer at the international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer from March 2011 to June 2015. Ms. Chambers served as Chief Marketing Officer of retail and commercial banking and Barclaycard at Barclays from June 2006 to November 2010, where she also led Barclaycard’s co-branded credit card issuing business in the United Kingdom for three years. Prior to joining Barclays, Ms. Chambers held a variety of strategy, marketing and new business development roles at Bingham McCutchen LLP from 2004 to 2006, Bank of America from 2002 to 2004 and the Reader’s Digest Association from 1998 to 2002. Earlier in her career, Ms. Chambers was a Partner in the Financial Institutions and Organization practices at McKinsey & Company. Ms. Chambers started her career as a financial analyst with Morgan Stanley & Co. Ms. Chambers is a non-executive director of Smith & Williamson Holdings Limited.
John R. Dye is our Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary. Prior to taking this position in November 2011, Mr. Dye was Senior Vice President, Interim General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation ("FHLMC") from July 2011. From July 2007 to July 2011, Mr. Dye served as Senior Vice President, Principal Deputy General Counsel Corporate Affairs, of FHLMC. Prior to joining FHLMC, Mr. Dye served as Associate General Counsel at Citigroup Inc. from August 1999 to July 2007, and as Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel at Salomon Smith Barney from 1994 to 1999. Prior to that time, Mr. Dye was an attorney at the law firm of Brown & Wood. Mr. Dye is a member of the Colorado State Banking Board. Mr. Dye is also Chairman of the Board of the Western Union Foundation.
Jean Claude Farah is our Executive Vice President and President, Global Payments (from February 2017). From December 2013 to February 2017, Mr. Farah served as Executive Vice President and President, Middle East, Africa, APAC, Eastern Europe and CIS, and from March 2009 to December 2013, Mr. Farah served as Senior Vice President for the Middle East and Africa region at Western Union. Mr. Farah joined Western Union in 1999 as Marketing Manager, Middle East & North Africa. He has held a variety of progressively responsible positions with the company, including Regional Director from March 2003 to June 2005, Regional Vice President from June 2005 to March 2009 and Senior Vice President for the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan region. Mr. Farah started his career in 1995 with Renault SA. Prior to joining Western Union, he was Area Manager for Orangina Pernod Ricard.
J. David Thompson is our Executive Vice President, Global Operations (from November 2012) and Chief Information Officer (from April 2012). Prior to April 2012, Mr. Thompson was Group President, Services & Support and Global CIO of Symantec Corporation since January 2008. From February 2006 to January 2008, Mr. Thompson served as Symantec's Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer. Prior to joining Symantec, Mr. Thompson was Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Oracle Corporation from January 2005 to January 2006. From August 1995 to January 2005, he was Vice President of Services and Chief Information Officer at PeopleSoft, Inc. Mr. Thompson is a non-executive director of CoreSite Realty Corporation.
Richard L. Williams is our Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer (from October 2013). Mr. Williams previously served as Interim Chief Human Resources Officer from March 2013 to October 2013 and as Senior Vice President, Human Resources - Global Consumer Financial Services from June 2011 to October 2013. Mr. Williams joined Western Union in November 2009 as the Vice President of Human Resources for the Americas and Global Cards. Before joining Western Union, Mr. Williams worked for Fullerton Financial Holdings (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings) as its Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates from September 2007 to October 2009. Previously, Mr. Williams spent 17 years (May 1998 to August 2007 and August 1989 to February 1997) with American Express Company.
ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS
There are many factors that affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows, some of which are beyond our control. These risks include, but are not limited to, the risks described below. Such risks are grouped according to:
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• | Risks Relating to Our Business and Industry; |
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• | Risks Related to Our Regulatory and Litigation Environment; and |
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• | Risks Related to the Spin-Off. |
You should carefully consider all of these risks.
Risks Relating to Our Business and Industry
Global economic downturns or slower growth or declines in the money transfer, payment service, and other markets in which we operate, including downturns or declines related to interruptions in migration patterns, and difficult conditions in global financial markets and financial market disruptions could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
The global economy has experienced in recent years, and may experience, downturns, volatility and disruption, and we face certain risks relating to such events, including:
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• | Demand for our services could soften, including due to low consumer confidence, high unemployment, or reduced global trade. |
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• | Our Consumer-to-Consumer money transfer business relies in large part on migration, which brings workers to countries with greater economic opportunities than those available in their native countries. A significant portion of money transfers are sent by international migrants. Migration is affected by (among other factors) overall economic conditions, the availability of job opportunities, changes in immigration laws, restrictions on immigration, and political or other events (such as war, terrorism or health emergencies) that would make it more difficult for workers to migrate or work abroad. Changes to these factors could adversely affect our remittance volume and could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, and our cash management strategies, including the amounts, timing, and manner by which cash is repatriated or otherwise made available from our international subsidiaries ("Cash Management Strategies"). |
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• | Many of our consumers work in industries that may be impacted by deteriorating economic conditions more quickly or significantly than other industries. Reduced job opportunities, especially in retail, technology, healthcare, hospitality, energy, and construction, or overall weakness in the world’s economies could adversely affect the number of money transfer transactions, the principal amounts transferred and correspondingly our results of operations. If general market softness in the economies of countries important to migrant workers occurs, our results of operations could be adversely impacted. Additionally, if our consumer transactions decline, if the amount of money that consumers send per transaction declines, or if migration patterns shift due to weak or deteriorating economic conditions or immigration laws, our financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, and our Cash Management Strategies may be adversely affected. |
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• | Our agents or clients could experience reduced sales or business as a result of a deterioration in economic conditions. As a result, our agents could reduce their numbers of locations or hours of operation, or cease doing business altogether. Businesses using our services may make fewer cross-currency payments or may have fewer customers making payments to them through us, particularly businesses in those industries that may be more affected by an economic downturn. |
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• | Our Business Solutions business is heavily dependent on global trade. A downturn in global trade or the failure of long-term import growth rates to return to historic levels could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, and our Cash Management Strategies. Additionally, as customer hedging activity in our Business Solutions business generally varies with currency volatility, we have experienced and may experience in the future lower foreign exchange revenues in periods of lower currency volatility. |
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• | Our exposure to receivables from our agents, consumers and businesses could impact us. For more information on this risk, see risk factor, "We face credit, liquidity and fraud risks from our agents, consumers, businesses, and third-party processors that could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows." |
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• | The market value of the securities in our investment portfolio may substantially decline. The impact of that decline in value may adversely affect our liquidity, financial condition, and results of operations. |
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• | The counterparties to the derivative financial instruments that we use to reduce our exposure to various market risks, including changes in interest rates and foreign exchange rates, may fail to honor their obligations, which could expose us to risks we had sought to mitigate. This includes the exposure generated by the Business Solutions business, where we write derivative contracts to our customers as part of our cross-currency payments business, and we typically hedge the net exposure through offsetting contracts with established financial institution counterparties. That failure could have an adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows. |
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• | We may be unable to refinance our existing indebtedness as it becomes due or we may have to refinance or obtain new financing on unfavorable terms, which could require us to dedicate a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to payments on our debt, thereby reducing funds available for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions, share repurchases, dividends, and other purposes. |
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• | Our revolving credit facility with a consortium of banks is one source for funding liquidity needs and also backs our commercial paper program. If any of the banks participating in our credit facility fails to fulfill its lending commitment to us, our short-term liquidity and ability to support borrowings under our commercial paper program could be adversely affected. |
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• | The third-party service providers on whom we depend may experience difficulties in their businesses, which may impair their ability to provide services to us and have a potential impact on our own business. The impact of a change or temporary stoppage of services may have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows. |
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• | Banks upon which we rely to conduct our business could fail or be unable to satisfy their obligations to us. This could lead to our inability to access funds and/or credit losses for us and could adversely impact our ability to conduct our business. |
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• | Insurers we utilize to mitigate our exposures to litigation and other risks may be unable to or refuse to satisfy their obligations to us, which could have an adverse effect on our liquidity, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows. |
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• | If market disruption and volatility occurs, we could experience difficulty in accessing capital on favorable terms and our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows could be adversely impacted. |
We face competition from global and niche or corridor money transfer providers, United States and international banks, card associations, card-based payments providers and a number of other types of service providers, including electronic, mobile and Internet-based services, and from digital currencies and related protocols, and other innovations in technology and business models. Our future growth depends on our ability to compete effectively in the industry.
Money transfer and business payments are highly competitive industries which include service providers from a variety of financial and non-financial business groups. Our competitors include consumer money transfer companies, banks, credit unions, card associations, web-based services, mobile money transfer services, payment processors, card-based payments providers such as issuers of e-money, travel cards or stored-value cards, informal remittance systems, automated teller machine providers and operators, phone payment systems (including mobile phone networks), postal organizations, retailers, check cashers, mail and courier services, currency exchanges, and digital currencies. These services are differentiated by features and functionalities such as brand recognition, customer service, trust and reliability, distribution network and channel options, convenience, price, speed, variety of payment methods, service offerings and innovation. Distribution network and channel options, such as our electronic channels, have been and may continue to be impacted by increased competition, including from new competitors and the consolidation of competitors and the expansion of their services, which could adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
Our future growth depends on our ability to compete effectively in money transfer and business payments. For example, if we fail to price our services appropriately, consumers may not use our services, which could adversely affect our business and financial results. In addition, we have historically implemented and will likely continue to implement price reductions from time to time in response to competition and other factors. Price reductions generally reduce margins and adversely affect financial results in the short term and may also adversely affect financial results in the long term if transaction volumes do not increase sufficiently. Further, failure to compete on service differentiation and service quality could significantly affect our future growth potential and results of operations.
As noted below under risk factor "Risks associated with operations outside the United States and foreign currencies could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows," many of our agents outside the United States are national post offices. These entities are usually governmental organizations that may enjoy special privileges or protections that could allow them to simultaneously develop their own money transfer businesses. International postal organizations could agree to establish a money transfer network among themselves. Due to the size of these organizations and the number of locations they have, any such network could represent significant competition to us.
If customer confidence in our business or in consumer money transfer and payment service providers generally deteriorates, our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows could be adversely affected.
Our business is built on customer confidence in our brands and our ability to provide fast, reliable money transfer and payment services. Erosion in customer confidence in our business, or in consumer money transfer and payment service providers as a means to transfer money, could adversely impact transaction volumes which would in turn adversely impact our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, and our Cash Management Strategies.
A number of factors could adversely affect customer confidence in our business, or in consumer money transfer and payment service providers generally, many of which are beyond our control, and could have an adverse impact on our results of operations. These factors include:
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• | changes or proposed changes in laws or regulations or regulator or judicial interpretation thereof that have the effect of making it more difficult or less desirable to transfer money using consumer money transfer and payment service providers, including additional consumer due diligence, identification, reporting, and recordkeeping requirements; |
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• | the quality of our services and our customer experience, and our ability to meet evolving customer needs and preferences, including consumer preferences related to our westernunion.com and mobile money transfer services; |
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• | failure of our agents or their subagents to deliver services in accordance with our requirements; |
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• | reputational concerns resulting from actual or perceived events, including those related to fraud or consumer protection in connection with the Joint Settlement Agreements or other matters; |
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• | actions by federal, state or foreign regulators that interfere with our ability to transfer consumers' money reliably, for example, attempts to seize money transfer funds, or limit our ability to or prohibit us from transferring money in certain corridors; |
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• | federal, state or foreign legal requirements, including those that require us to provide consumer or transaction data pursuant to our settlement agreement with the State of Arizona and requirements under the Joint Settlement Agreements, and other requirements or to a greater extent than is currently required; |
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• | any significant interruption in our systems, including by fire, natural disaster, power loss, telecommunications failure, terrorism, vendor failure, unauthorized entry and computer viruses or disruptions in our workforce; and |
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• | any breach of our computer systems or other data storage facilities resulting in a compromise of personal data. |
Many of our money transfer consumers are migrants. Consumer advocacy groups or governmental agencies could consider migrants to be disadvantaged and entitled to protection, enhanced consumer disclosure, or other different treatment. If consumer advocacy groups are able to generate widespread support for actions that are detrimental to our business, then our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows could be adversely affected.
Our ability to adopt new technology and develop and gain market acceptance of new and enhanced products and services in response to changing industry and regulatory standards and evolving customer needs poses a challenge to our business.
Our industry is subject to rapid and significant technological changes, with the constant introduction of new and enhanced products and services and evolving industry and regulatory standards and consumer needs and preferences. Our ability to enhance our current products and services and introduce new products and services that address these changes has a significant impact on our ability to be successful. We actively seek to respond in a timely manner to changes in customer (both consumer and business) needs and preferences, technology advances and new and enhanced products and services such as technology-based money transfer and Business Solutions payments services, including Internet, phone-based and other mobile money transfer services. Failure to respond timely and well to these challenges could adversely impact our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows. Further, even if we respond well to these challenges, the business and financial models offered by many of these alternative, more technology-reliant means of money transfer and electronic payment solutions may be less advantageous to us than our traditional cash/agent model or our current electronic money transfer model.
Risks associated with operations outside the United States and foreign currencies could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
A substantial portion of our revenue is generated in currencies other than the United States dollar. As a result, we are subject to risks associated with changes in the value of our revenues and net monetary assets denominated in foreign currencies. For example, a considerable portion of our revenue is generated in the euro. If we are unable to or elect not to hedge our foreign exchange exposure to the euro against a significant devaluation, the value of our euro-denominated revenue, operating income and net monetary assets and liabilities would be correspondingly reduced when translated into United States dollars for inclusion in our financial statements. Moreover, if we engage in foreign currency hedging activities related to our revenues, such transactions may help to mitigate the adverse financial effects of an appreciation in the United States dollar relative to other currencies. In an environment of a declining United States dollar relative to other currencies, such hedging transactions could have the effect of limiting the translation benefits on our reported financial results. In addition, our Business Solutions business provides currency conversion and, in certain countries, foreign exchange hedging services to its customers, further exposing us to foreign currency exchange risk. In order to help mitigate these risks, we enter into derivative contracts. However, these contracts do not eliminate all of the risks related to fluctuating foreign currency rates.
We operate in almost all developing markets throughout the world. In many of these markets, our foreign currency exposure is limited because most transactions are receive transactions and we currently reimburse most of our agents in either United States dollars or euros for the payment of these transactions. However, in certain of these developing markets we settle transactions in local currencies and generate revenue from send transactions. Our exposure to foreign currency fluctuations in those markets is increased as these fluctuations impact our revenues and operating income.
We have additional foreign exchange risk and associated foreign exchange risk management requirements due to the nature of our Business Solutions business. The majority of this business' revenue is from exchanges of currency at spot rates, which enable customers to make cross-currency payments. In certain countries, this business also writes foreign currency forward and option contracts for our customers. The duration of these derivative contracts at inception is generally less than one year. The credit risk associated with our derivative contracts increases when foreign currency exchange rates move against our customers, possibly impacting their ability to honor their obligations to deliver currency to us or to maintain appropriate collateral with us. Business Solutions aggregates its foreign exchange exposures arising from customer contracts, including the derivative contracts described above, and hedges the resulting net currency risks by entering into offsetting contracts with established financial institution counterparties. If we are unable to obtain offsetting positions, our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows could be adversely affected.
A substantial portion of our revenue is generated outside the United States. Repatriating foreign earnings to the United States would, in many cases, result in significant tax obligations because most of these earnings have been taxed at relatively low foreign tax rates compared to our combined federal and state tax rate in the United States. We utilize a variety of planning and financial strategies to help ensure that our worldwide cash is available where needed, including decisions related to the amounts, timing, and manner by which cash is repatriated or otherwise made available from our international subsidiaries. Changes in the amounts, timing, and manner by which cash is repatriated (or deemed repatriated) or otherwise made available from our international subsidiaries, including changes arising from new legal or tax rules, disagreements with legal or tax authorities concerning existing rules that are ultimately resolved in their favor, or changes in our operations or business, could result in material adverse effects on our financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows including our ability to pay future dividends or make share repurchases. For further discussion regarding the risk that our future effective tax rates could be adversely impacted by changes in tax laws, both domestically and internationally, see risk factor "Changes in tax laws, or their interpretation, and unfavorable resolution of tax contingencies could adversely affect our tax expense" below.
Money transfers and payments to, from, within, or between countries may be limited or prohibited by law. At times in the past, we have been required to cease operations in particular countries due to political uncertainties or government restrictions imposed by foreign governments or the United States. Occasionally agents or their subagents have been required by their regulators to cease offering our services; see risk factor "Regulatory initiatives and changes in laws, regulations and industry practices and standards affecting us, our agents or their subagents, or the banks with which we or our agents maintain bank accounts needed to provide our services could require changes in our business model and increase our costs of operations, which could adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations, and liquidity" below. Additionally, economic or political instability or natural disasters may make money transfers to, from, within, or between particular countries difficult or impossible, such as when banks are closed, when currency devaluation makes exchange rates difficult to manage or when natural disasters or civil unrest makes access to agent locations unsafe. These risks could negatively impact our ability to offer our services, to make payments to or receive payments from international agents or our subsidiaries or to recoup funds that have been advanced to international agents or are held by our subsidiaries, and as a result could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows. In addition, the general state of telecommunications and infrastructure in some lesser developed countries, including countries where we have a large number of transactions, creates operational risks for us and our agents that generally are not present in our operations in the United States and other more developed countries.
Many of our agents outside the United States are post offices, which are usually owned and operated by national governments. These governments may decide to change the terms under which they allow post offices to offer remittances and other financial services. For example, governments may decide to separate financial service operations from postal operations, or mandate the creation or privatization of a "post bank," which could result in the loss of agent locations, or they may require multiple service providers in their network. These changes could have an adverse effect on our ability to distribute or offer our services in countries that are material to our business.
Breaches of our information security policies or safeguards could adversely affect our ability to operate and could damage our reputation and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
We collect, transfer and retain consumer, business, employee and agent data as part of our business. With our services being offered in more than 200 countries and territories, these activities are subject to laws and regulations in the United States and many other jurisdictions; see risk factor "Current and proposed regulation addressing consumer privacy and data use and security could increase our costs of operations, which could adversely affect our operations, results of operations and financial condition" below. The requirements imposed by these laws and regulations, which often differ materially among the many jurisdictions and can have impacts on our business practices both inside and outside the jurisdiction that imposed the regulation, are designed to protect the privacy of personal information and prevent that information from being inappropriately used or disclosed. We have developed and maintain technical and operational measures designed to comply with applicable legal requirements. However, despite those measures, it is possible that hackers, employees acting contrary to our policies or others could improperly access our systems or the systems of our business partners and service providers and improperly obtain or disclose data about our consumers, business customers, agents, subagents, and/or employees, or that a third-party service provider could intentionally or inadvertently disclose personal data in violation of law. For example, a significant and increasing amount of our data is collected and stored by third parties, including providers of cloud-based software services. Hackers accessed the system of one of our third-party providers and improperly obtained data about some of our agents and consumers. Western Union systems and money transfer operations were not impacted. Data breaches such as these have the potential to impose material costs on the Company and there can be no assurance that additional breaches will not occur in the future. The methods used to obtain unauthorized access, disable or degrade service or sabotage systems are also constantly changing and evolving and may be difficult to anticipate or detect for long periods of time. Also, in some jurisdictions we transfer data related to our employees, business customers, consumers, subagents, agents and potential employees to third-party vendors in order to perform due diligence and for other reasons. It is possible that a vendor could intentionally or inadvertently disclose such data. Additionally, transactions undertaken through our mobile services may create different risks of fraud, hacking, and other deceptive practices. Any data breach resulting in a compromise of consumer, business, employee or agent data could require us to notify impacted individuals, and in some cases regulators, of a possible or actual breach, expose us to regulatory enforcement action, including substantial fines, limit our ability to provide services, subject us to litigation, damage our reputation, and could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
Interruptions in our systems, including as a result of cyber attacks, or disruptions in our workforce may have a significant effect on our business.
Our ability to provide reliable service largely depends on the efficient and uninterrupted operation of our computer information systems and those of our service providers. Any significant interruptions could harm our business and reputation and result in a loss of business. These systems and operations could be exposed to damage or interruption from fire, natural disaster, power loss, telecommunications failure, terrorism, vendor failure, unauthorized entry and computer viruses or other causes, many of which may be beyond our control or that of our service providers. Further, we have been and continue to be the subject of cyber attacks, including distributed denial of service attacks. These attacks are primarily aimed at interrupting our business, exposing us to financial losses, or exploiting information security vulnerabilities. Historically, none of these attacks or breaches has individually or in the aggregate resulted in any material liability to us or any material damage to our reputation, and disruptions related to cybersecurity have not caused any material disruption to the Company's business. Although we have taken steps and made investments to prevent security breaches and systems disruptions, our measures may not be successful and we may experience material breaches, disruptions or other problems in the future. We also may experience software defects, development delays, installation difficulties and other systems problems, which would harm our business and reputation and expose us to potential liability which may not be fully covered by our business interruption insurance. In addition, hardware, software, or applications we develop or procure from third parties may contain defects in design or manufacture or other problems that could unexpectedly compromise information security. Our data applications may not be sufficient to address technological advances, regulatory requirements, changing market conditions or other developments. In addition, any work stoppages or other labor actions by employees, the significant majority of whom are located outside the United States, could adversely affect our business.
We receive services from third-party vendors that would be difficult to replace if those vendors ceased providing such services adequately or at all. Cessation of or defects in various services provided to us by third-party vendors could cause temporary disruption to our business.
Some services relating to our business, such as software application support, the development, hosting and maintenance of our operating systems, merchant acquiring services, check clearing, and processing of returned checks are outsourced to third-party vendors, which would be difficult to replace quickly. If our third-party vendors were unwilling or unable to provide us with these services in the future, our business and operations could be adversely affected.
Acquisitions and integration of new businesses create risks and may affect operating results.
We have acquired and may acquire businesses both inside and outside the United States. As of December 31, 2016, we had $3,162.0 million of goodwill comprising approximately 34% of our total assets, including $1,950.1 million of goodwill in our Consumer-to-Consumer reporting unit and $996.0 million of goodwill in our Business Solutions reporting unit. If we or our reporting units do not generate operating cash flows at levels consistent with our expectations, we may be required to write down the goodwill on our balance sheet, which could have a significant adverse impact on our financial condition and results of operations in future periods.
For the Business Solutions reporting unit, a decline in estimated fair value of approximately 15% as of the October 1, 2016 testing date could occur before triggering an impairment of goodwill. The fair value of the Business Solutions reporting unit is sensitive to changes in projections for revenue growth rates and EBITDA margins, as well as changes in United States and foreign income tax rates, which impact the value of our cash flow management and liquidity strategies facilitated through the Business Solutions reporting unit. The value derived from these strategies to optimize United States cash flow management and global liquidity by utilizing international cash balances (including balances generated by other operating segments) to initially fund global principal payouts for Business Solutions transactions initiated in the United States would also be available to certain market participants. If tax reform is enacted that would reduce the cost of or restrictions on repatriating funds back to the United States, the fair value of these strategies could be reduced, which could contribute, along with a reduction in other anticipated future operating cash flows, to a write down of goodwill, which could have a significant adverse impact on our financial condition and results of operations. See the "Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates" discussion in Part II, Item 7, Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operation, for more detail.
In addition to the risk of goodwill impairment, the acquisition and integration of businesses involve a number of other risks. The core risks involve valuation (negotiating a fair price for the business based on inherently limited due diligence) and integration (managing the complex process of integrating the acquired company's people, products and services, technology and other assets in an effort to realize the projected value of the acquired company and the projected synergies of the acquisition). Another risk is the need in some cases to improve regulatory compliance, see "Risks Related to Our Regulatory and Litigation Environment" below. Acquisitions often involve additional or increased risks including, for example:
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• | realizing the anticipated financial benefits from these acquisitions and where necessary, improving internal controls of these acquired businesses; |
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• | managing geographically separated organizations, systems and facilities; |
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• | managing multi-jurisdictional operating, tax and financing structures; |
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• | integrating personnel with diverse business backgrounds and organizational cultures; |
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• | integrating the acquired technologies into our Company; |
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• | complying with regulatory requirements, including those particular to the industry and jurisdiction of the acquired business; |
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• | enforcing intellectual property rights in some foreign countries; |
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• | entering new markets with the services of the acquired businesses; and |
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• | general economic and political conditions, including legal and other barriers to cross-border investment in general, or by United States companies in particular. |
Integrating operations could cause an interruption of, or divert resources from, one or more of our businesses and could result in the loss of key personnel. The diversion of management's attention and any delays or difficulties encountered in connection with an acquisition and the integration of the acquired company's operations could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
We face credit, liquidity and fraud risks from our agents, consumers, businesses, and third-party processors that could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
The vast majority of our Consumer-to-Consumer money transfer activity and much of our Consumer-to-Business activity is conducted through third-party agents that provide our services to consumers at their retail locations. These agents sell our services, collect funds from consumers and are required to pay the proceeds from these transactions to us. As a result, we have credit exposure to our agents. In some countries, our agent networks include superagents that establish subagent relationships; these agents must collect funds from their subagents in order to pay us. We are not insured against credit losses, except in certain circumstances related to agent theft or fraud. If an agent becomes insolvent, files for bankruptcy, commits fraud or otherwise fails to pay money order, money transfer or payment services proceeds to us, we must nonetheless pay the money order or complete the money transfer or payment services on behalf of the consumer.
The liquidity of our agents and other parties we transact with directly, including merchant acquirers, is necessary for our business to remain strong and to continue to provide our services. If our agents or other partners fail to settle with us in a timely manner, our liquidity could be affected.
From time to time, we have made, and may in the future make, short-term advances and longer term loans to our agents. These advances and loans generally are secured by settlement funds payable by us to these agents. However, the failure of these borrowing agents to repay these advances and loans constitutes a credit risk to us.
We are exposed to credit risk in our Business Solutions business relating to: (a) derivatives written by us to our customers and (b) the extension of trade credit when transactions are paid to recipients prior to our receiving cleared funds from the sending customers. The credit risk associated with our derivative contracts increases when foreign currency exchange rates move against our customers, possibly impacting their ability to honor their obligations to deliver currency to us or to maintain appropriate collateral with us. If a customer becomes insolvent, files for bankruptcy, commits fraud or otherwise fails to pay us, we may be exposed to the value of an offsetting position with a financial institution counterparty for the derivatives or may bear financial risk for those receivables where we have offered trade credit.
We offer consumers in select countries the ability to transfer money utilizing their bank account or credit or debit card via the Internet and phone. These transactions have experienced and continue to experience a greater risk of fraud and higher fraud losses. Additionally, money transfers funded by ACH, or similar methods, are not preauthorized by the sender's bank and carry the risk that the account may not exist or have sufficient funds to cover the transaction. We apply verification and other tools to help authenticate transactions and protect against fraud. However, these tools are not always successful in protecting us against fraud. As the merchant of these transactions, we may bear the financial risk of the full amount sent in some of the fraudulent transactions. Issuers of credit and debit cards may also incur losses due to fraudulent transactions through our distribution channels and may elect to block transactions by their cardholders in these channels with or without notice. We may be subject to additional fees or penalties if the amount of chargebacks exceeds a certain percentage of our transaction volume. Such fees and penalties increase over time if we do not take effective action to reduce chargebacks below the threshold, and if chargeback levels are not ultimately reduced to acceptable levels, our merchant accounts could be suspended or revoked, which would adversely affect our results of operations.
We believe we have adequate liquidity to meet our business needs, service our debt obligations, pay dividends, and repurchase shares through our existing cash balances, our ability to generate cash flows through operations, our $1.65 billion revolving credit facility and our $1.5 billion commercial paper program. To help ensure availability of our worldwide cash where needed, we utilize a variety of planning and financial strategies, including decisions related to the amounts, timing and manner by which cash is repatriated or otherwise made available from our international subsidiaries. These decisions can influence our overall tax rate and impact our total liquidity. However, our overall liquidity may be impacted by existing regulations and new proposed regulations that, if fully implemented, would require us to post collateral in connection with our derivative financial instruments used to hedge our exposures arising in connection with changes to foreign currency exchange rates and interest rates. We are still assessing the liquidity impact of these new regulations.
If we are unable to maintain our agent, subagent or global business relationships under terms consistent with those currently in place, including due to increased costs or loss of business as a result of increased compliance requirements or difficulty for us, our agents or their subagents in establishing or maintaining relationships with banks needed to conduct our services, or if our agents or their subagents fail to comply with Western Union business and technology standards and contract requirements, our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows would be adversely affected.
Most of our Consumer-to-Consumer revenue is derived through our agent network. Some of our international agents have subagent relationships in which we are not directly involved. If, due to competition or other reasons, agents or their subagents decide to leave our network, or if we are unable to sign new agents or maintain our agent network under terms consistent with those currently in place, or if our agents are unable to maintain relationships with or sign new subagents, our revenue and profits may be adversely affected. Agent attrition might occur for a number of reasons, including a competitor engaging an agent, an agent's dissatisfaction with its relationship with us or the revenue derived from that relationship, an agent's or its subagents' unwillingness or inability to comply with our standards or legal requirements, including those related to compliance with anti-money laundering regulations, anti-fraud measures, or agent registration and monitoring requirements or increased costs or loss of business as a result of difficulty for us, our agents or their subagents in establishing or maintaining relationships with banks needed to conduct our services. For example, changes to our compliance-related practices as a result of our settlement agreement with the State of Arizona and changes to our business model, primarily related to our Vigo and Orlandi Valuta brands, resulted in the loss of over 7,000 agent locations in Mexico in 2012. Also, under the Joint Settlement Agreements, we are subject to heightened requirements relating to agent oversight which may result in agent attrition. In addition, agents may generate fewer transactions or less revenue for various reasons, including increased competition, political unrest, or changes in the economy, and the cost of maintaining agent or subagent locations has increased and may continue to increase because of enhanced compliance efforts. Because an agent is a third party that engages in a variety of activities in addition to providing our services, it may encounter business difficulties unrelated to its provision of our services, which could cause the agent to reduce its number of locations, hours of operation, or cease doing business altogether.
Changes in laws regulating competition or in the interpretation of those laws could undermine our ability to enter into or maintain our exclusive arrangements with our current and prospective agents. See risk factor "Regulatory initiatives and changes in laws, regulations and industry practices and standards affecting us, our agents or their subagents, or the banks with which we or our agents maintain bank accounts needed to provide our services could require changes in our business model and increase our costs of operations, which could adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations, and liquidity" below. In addition, certain of our agents and subagents have refused to enter into exclusive arrangements. The inability to enter into exclusive arrangements or to maintain our exclusive rights in agent contracts in certain situations could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows by, for example, allowing competitors to benefit from the goodwill associated with the Western Union brand at our agent locations.
We rely on our agents' information systems and/or processes to obtain transaction data. If an agent or their subagent loses information, if there is a significant disruption to the information systems of an agent or their subagent, or if an agent or their subagent does not maintain the appropriate controls over their systems, we may experience reputational and other harm which could result in losses to the Company.
In our Consumer-to-Business segment, we provide services for making one-time or recurring payments from consumers to businesses and other organizations, including utilities, auto finance companies, mortgage servicers, financial service providers and government agencies. Our relationships with these businesses and other organizations are a core component of our payments services, and we derive a substantial portion of our Consumer-to-Business revenue through these relationships. In Business Solutions, we facilitate payment and foreign exchange solutions, primarily cross-border, cross-currency transactions, for small and medium size enterprises and other organizations and individuals. Increased regulation and compliance requirements are impacting these businesses by making it more costly for us to provide our services or by making it more cumbersome for businesses or consumers to do business with us. We have also had difficulty establishing or maintaining banking relationships needed to conduct our services due to banks’ policies. If we are unable to maintain our current business or banking relationships or establish new relationships under terms consistent with those currently in place, our ability to continue to offer our services may be adversely impacted, which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
As a result of offering our services, our agents may be subject to various taxes, as governments outside the United States have viewed and may continue to view our agents' services as subject to income, withholding, and other taxes. Any such taxes that are levied on our agents could make it less desirable for agents to offer our services, which could result in increased agent attrition, agents ceasing to offer some of our services, or increased costs to maintain our agent network, either of which could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and cash flows.
Changes in tax laws, or their interpretation, and unfavorable resolution of tax contingencies could adversely affect our tax expense.
Our future effective tax rates could be adversely affected by changes in tax laws or their interpretation, both domestically and internationally. For example, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development ("OECD") has asked countries around the globe to act to prevent what it refers to as base erosion and profit shifting ("BEPS"). The OECD considers BEPS to refer to tax planning strategies that shift, perhaps artificially, profits across borders to take advantage of differing tax laws and rates among countries. Tax reforms recommended in the BEPS action plan include changes that would impact, among other things, global tax reporting, intercompany transfer pricing arrangements, the definition of taxable permanent establishments, and other legal or financial arrangements that are viewed as causing BEPS. Significant components of the BEPS action plan were published by the OECD in October 2015 and a number of governments, including the European Commission, have already enacted or proposed rules to implement, at least to some degree, changes suggested in the recommendations, while other countries are preparing to do so. In addition to BEPS, efforts for tax reform in the United States are intensifying, though the nature and scope of such reform, if enacted, and the potential effect on our tax position, is still unclear. Among many possibilities, United States reform could include items such as a one-time tax on undistributed foreign profits of United States-based multinational companies, a lower overall United States corporate tax rate, implementation of a more territorial-style approach to taxation of non-United States profits, changes in the tax treatment of interest expense, and other significant items. As of December 31, 2016, we had outside tax basis differences, which primarily relate to accumulated foreign earnings, of approximately $6.7 billion. Any material change in tax laws or policies, or their interpretation, resulting from BEPS, United States tax reform or other legislative proposals or inquiries could result in a higher effective tax rate on our earnings and have an adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
Our tax returns and positions (including positions regarding jurisdictional authority of foreign governments to impose tax) are subject to review and audit by federal, state, local and international taxing authorities. An unfavorable outcome to a tax audit could result in higher tax expense, thereby negatively impacting our results of operations. We have established contingency reserves for a variety of material, known tax exposures. As of December 31, 2016, the total amount of unrecognized tax benefits was a liability of $365.1 million, including accrued interest and penalties, net of related items. Our reserves reflect our judgment as to the resolution of the issues involved if subject to judicial review. While we believe that our reserves are adequate to cover reasonably expected tax risks, there can be no assurance that, in all instances, an issue raised by a tax authority will be resolved at a financial cost that does not exceed our related reserve, and such resolution could have a material effect on our effective tax rate, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows in the current period and/or future periods. With respect to these reserves, our income tax expense would include (i) any changes in tax reserves arising from material changes during the period in the facts and circumstances (i.e. new information) surrounding a tax issue and (ii) any difference from the Company's tax position as recorded in the financial statements and the final resolution of a tax issue during the period. Such resolution could increase or decrease income tax expense in our consolidated financial statements in future periods and could impact our operating cash flows. For example, in 2011, we reached an agreement with the United States Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") resolving substantially all of the issues related to the restructuring of our international operations in 2003, which resulted in a tax benefit of $204.7 million related to the adjustment of reserves associated with this matter and requires cash payments to the IRS and various state tax authorities of approximately $190 million, plus additional accrued interest, of which $94.1 million has been paid as of December 31, 2016. See the "Contractual Obligations" discussion in Part II, Item 7, Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.
The IRS completed its examination of the United States federal consolidated income tax returns of First Data, which include our 2005 and pre-Spin-off 2006 taxable periods and issued its report on October 31, 2012 ("FDC 30-Day Letter"). Furthermore, the IRS completed its examination of our United States federal consolidated income tax returns for the 2006 post-Spin-off period through 2009 and issued its report also on October 31, 2012 ("WU 30-Day Letter"). Both the FDC 30-Day Letter and the WU 30-Day Letter propose tax adjustments affecting us, some of which are agreed and some of which are unagreed. We filed our protest on November 28, 2012 related to the unagreed proposed adjustments with the IRS Appeals Division. Discussions with the IRS concerning these adjustments are ongoing. See Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 10, "Income Taxes" for a further discussion of this matter.
Our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows could be harmed by adverse rating actions by credit rating agencies.
Downgrades in our credit ratings, or their review or revision to a negative outlook, such as a recent revision by one rating agency to a negative outlook, could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows, and could damage perceptions of our financial strength, which could adversely affect our relationships with our agents, particularly those agents that are financial institutions or post offices, and our banking and other business relationships. In addition, adverse ratings actions could result in regulators imposing additional capital and other requirements on us, including imposing restrictions on the ability of our regulated subsidiaries to pay dividends. Also, a downgrade below investment grade will increase our interest expense under certain of our notes, our revolving credit facility, and our term loan facility, and any significant downgrade could increase our costs of borrowing money more generally or adversely impact or eliminate our access to the commercial paper market, each of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
We may not realize all of the anticipated benefits from business transformation, productivity and cost-savings, and other related initiatives, which may include decisions to downsize or to transition operating activities from one location to another, and we may experience disruptions in our workforce as a result of those initiatives.
We have engaged, and are engaging in actions and activities, such as the WU Way initiative, associated with business transformation, productivity improvement initiatives, and expense reduction measures. See Part II, Item 7, Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations for further discussion regarding the WU Way initiative. We may implement additional initiatives in future periods. While these initiatives are designed to increase operational effectiveness and productivity and result in cost savings, there can be no assurance that the anticipated benefits will be realized, and the costs to implement such initiatives may be greater than expected. In addition, these initiatives have resulted and will likely result in the loss of personnel, some of whom may support significant systems or operations. Consequently, these initiatives could result in a disruption to our workforce. If we do not realize the anticipated benefits from the WU Way or similar initiatives, or the costs to implement them are greater than expected, or if the actions result in a disruption to our workforce greater than anticipated, our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows could be adversely affected.
There can be no guarantee that we will continue to make dividend payments or repurchase stock.
For risks associated with our ability to continue to make dividend payments or repurchase shares, please see Part II, Item 5, Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.
Our ability to remain competitive depends in part on our ability to protect our brands and our other intellectual property rights and to defend ourselves against potential intellectual property infringement claims.
The Western Union and WU brands, which are protected by trademark registrations in many countries, are material to our Company. The loss of the Western Union or WU trademarks or a diminution in the perceived quality associated with the names would harm our business. Similar to the Western Union and WU trademarks, the Vigo, Orlandi Valuta, Speedpay, Pago Fácil, Western Union Payments, Quick Collect, Quick Pay, Quick Cash, Convenience Pay, Western Union Business Solutions and other trademarks and service marks are also important to our Company and a loss of the service mark or trademarks or a diminution in the perceived quality associated with these names could harm our business.
Our intellectual property rights are an important element in the value of our business. Our failure to take appropriate actions against those who infringe upon our intellectual property could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
The laws of certain foreign countries in which we do business do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as do the laws of the United States. Adverse determinations in judicial or administrative proceedings in the United States or in foreign countries could impair our ability to sell our services or license or protect our intellectual property, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
We own patents and patent applications covering various aspects of our processes and services. We have been, are and in the future may be, subject to claims alleging that our technology or business methods infringe intellectual property rights of others, both inside and outside the United States. Unfavorable resolution of these claims could require us to change how we deliver a service, result in significant financial consequences, or both, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
Material changes in the market value or liquidity of the securities we hold may adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.
As of December 31, 2016, we held $1.2 billion in investment securities, the substantial majority of which are state and municipal debt securities. The majority of this money represents the principal of money orders issued by us to consumers primarily in the United States and money transfers sent by consumers. We regularly monitor our credit risk and attempt to mitigate our exposure by investing in highly-rated securities and by diversifying our investments. Despite those measures, it is possible that the value of our portfolio may decline in the future due to any number of factors, including general market conditions, credit issues, the viability of the issuer of the security, failure by a fund manager to manage the investment portfolio consistently with the fund prospectus or increases in interest rates. Any such decline in value may adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.
The trust holding the assets of our pension plan has assets totaling approximately $280.0 million as of December 31, 2016. The fair value of these assets held in the trust are compared to the plan's projected benefit obligation of $306.4 million to determine the pension liability of $26.4 million recorded within "Other liabilities" in our Consolidated Balance Sheet as of December 31, 2016. We attempt to mitigate risk through diversification, and we regularly monitor investment risk on our portfolio through quarterly investment portfolio reviews and periodic asset and liability studies. Despite these measures, it is possible that the value of our portfolio may decline in the future due to any number of factors, including general market conditions and credit issues. Such declines could have an impact on the funded status of our pension plan and future funding requirements.
We have substantial debt obligations that could restrict our operations.
As of December 31, 2016, we had approximately $2.8 billion in consolidated indebtedness, and we may also incur additional indebtedness in the future.
Our indebtedness could have adverse consequences, including:
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• | limiting our ability to pay dividends to our stockholders or to repurchase stock consistent with our historical practices; |
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• | increasing our vulnerability to changing economic, regulatory and industry conditions; |
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• | limiting our ability to compete and our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and the industry; |
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• | limiting our ability to borrow additional funds; and |
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• | requiring us to dedicate a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to payments on our debt, thereby reducing funds available for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions and other purposes. |
There would be adverse tax consequences associated with using certain earnings generated outside the United States to pay the interest and principal on our indebtedness. Accordingly, this portion of our cash flow will be unavailable under normal circumstances to service our debt obligations.
Risks Related to Our Regulatory and Litigation Environment
As described under Part I, Item 1, Business, our business is subject to a wide range of laws and regulations enacted by the United States federal government, each of the states (including licensing requirements), many localities and many other countries and jurisdictions. Laws and regulations to which we are subject include those related to: financial services, anti-money laundering, countering the financing of terrorism, sanctions and anti-fraud, consumer disclosure and consumer protection, currency controls, money transfer and payment instrument licensing, payment services, credit and debit cards, electronic payments, foreign exchange hedging services and the sale of spot, forward and option currency contracts, unclaimed property, the regulation of competition, consumer privacy, data protection and information security. The failure by us, our agents or their subagents to comply with any such laws or regulations could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows and could seriously damage our reputation and brands, and result in diminished revenue and profit and increased operating costs.
Our business is subject to a wide range and increasing number of laws and regulations. Liabilities or loss of business resulting from a failure by us, our agents or their subagents to comply with laws and regulations and regulatory or judicial interpretations thereof, including laws and regulations designed to protect consumers, or detect and prevent money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud and other illicit activity, and increased costs or loss of business associated with compliance with those laws and regulations has had and we expect will continue to have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
Our services are subject to increasingly strict legal and regulatory requirements, including those intended to help detect and prevent money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud, and other illicit activity. The interpretation of those requirements by judges, regulatory bodies and enforcement agencies is changing, often quickly and with little notice. Economic and trade sanctions programs that are administered by the United States Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control prohibit or restrict transactions to or from or dealings with or involving specified countries, their governments, and in certain circumstances, their nationals, and with certain individuals and entities such as narcotics traffickers, terrorists and terrorist organizations. As United States federal and state as well as foreign legislative and regulatory scrutiny and enforcement action in these areas increase, we expect that our costs of complying with these requirements will continue to increase, perhaps substantially, or our compliance will make it more difficult or less desirable for consumers and others to use our services or for us to contract with certain intermediaries, either of which would have an adverse effect on our revenue and operating income. For example, we have made significant additional investments in recent years in our compliance programs based on the rapidly evolving environment and our internal reviews of the increasingly complex and demanding global regulatory requirements. These additional investments relate to enhancing our compliance capabilities, including our consumer protection efforts. Further, failure by Western Union, our agents, or their subagents (agents and subagents are third parties, over whom Western Union has limited legal and practical control), and certain service providers to comply with any of these requirements or their interpretation could result in the suspension or revocation of a license or registration required to provide money transfer, payment or foreign exchange services, the limitation, suspension or termination of services, changes to our business model, loss of consumer confidence, the seizure of our assets, and/or the imposition of civil and criminal penalties, including fines and restrictions on our ability to offer services.
We are subject to regulations imposed by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (the "FCPA") in the United States and similar laws in other countries, such as the Bribery Act in the United Kingdom, which generally prohibit companies and those acting on their behalf from making improper payments to foreign government officials for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business. Some of these laws, such as the Bribery Act, also prohibit improper payments between commercial enterprises. Because our services are offered in virtually every country of the world, we face significant risks associated with our obligations under the FCPA, the Bribery Act, and other national anti-corruption laws. Any determination that we have violated these laws could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
In addition, our United States business is subject to reporting, recordkeeping and anti-money laundering provisions of the Bank Secrecy Act, as amended (collectively, the "BSA"), and to regulatory oversight and enforcement by the United States Department of the Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ("FinCEN"). We have subsidiaries in Brazil and Austria that are subject to banking regulations. These subsidiaries are also subject to regulation, examination and supervision by the New York Department of Financial Services. Under the Payment Services Directive ("PSD"), as amended by a revised Payment Services Directive known as PSD2, in the European Union ("EU"), and under similar legislation enacted or proposed in other jurisdictions, we have and will increasingly become directly subject to reporting, recordkeeping, and anti-money laundering regulations, agent oversight and monitoring requirements, and broader supervision by EU member states. These laws have increased and will continue to increase our costs and could also increase competition in some or all of our areas of service.
The remittance industry, including Western Union, has come under increasing scrutiny from government regulators and others in connection with its ability to prevent its services from being abused by people seeking to defraud others. For example, as further discussed in Part I, Item 3, Legal Proceedings, and Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 5, "Commitments and Contingencies," we recently entered into agreements with the United States Department of Justice ("DOJ"), certain United States Attorney's Offices, the United States Federal Trade Commission ("FTC"), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ("FinCEN") of the United States Department of Treasury and various state attorneys general to resolve the respective investigations of those agencies (the "Joint Settlement Agreements"). The ingenuity of criminal fraudsters, combined with the potential susceptibility to fraud by consumers, make the prevention of consumer fraud a significant and challenging problem. Our failure to continue to help prevent such frauds and increased costs related to the implementation of enhanced anti-fraud measures, or a change in fraud prevention laws or their interpretation or the manner in which they are enforced has had, and could in the future have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
Further, any determination that our agents or their subagents have violated laws and regulations could seriously damage our reputation and brands, resulting in diminished revenue and profit and increased operating costs. In some cases, we could be liable for the failure of our agents or their subagents to comply with laws which also could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows. In many jurisdictions where Western Union is licensed to offer money transfer services, the license holder is responsible to some extent for the agent's compliance with the rules that govern the money transfer service. For example, in the EU, Western Union is responsible for the compliance of our agents and their subagents with the PSD when they are acting on behalf of our Irish payment institution subsidiary, which is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. The majority of our EU consumer money transfer activity is managed through our Irish payment institution. Thus, the risk of adverse regulatory action against Western Union because of actions by its agents or their subagents and the costs to monitor our agents or their subagents in those areas has increased. The regulations implementing the remittance provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the "Dodd-Frank Act") may also impose responsibility on us for any related compliance failures of our agents and their subagents.
The requirements under the PSD, the Dodd-Frank Act and similar legislation enacted or proposed in other countries have resulted and will likely continue to result in increased compliance costs, and in the event we or our agents are unable to comply, could have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows. Additional countries may adopt similar legislation.
Western Union is the subject of consent agreements with or enforcement actions by regulators.
As further described under Part I, Item 3, Legal Proceedings, the Company recently entered into Joint Settlement Agreements with the DOJ, certain United States Attorney's Offices, the FTC, FinCEN, and various state attorneys general to resolve the respective investigations of those agencies. Under the Joint Settlement Agreements, the Company is required, among other things, to pay an aggregate amount of $586 million to the DOJ to be used to reimburse consumers who were the victims of third-party fraud conducted through the Company’s money transfer services, and retain an independent compliance auditor for three years to review and assess actions taken by the Company to further enhance its oversight of agents and protection of consumers. The Joint Settlement Agreements also require the Company to adopt certain new or enhanced practices with respect to its compliance program, relating to, among other things, consumer reimbursement, agent due diligence, agent training, monitoring, reporting, and record-keeping by the Company and its agents, consumer fraud disclosures, and agent suspensions and terminations. The changes in the Company’s compliance program required by these agreements will have adverse effects on the Company’s business, including additional costs and potential loss of business. The Company could also face actions from other regulators as a result of the Joint Settlement Agreements. In addition, if the Company fails to comply with these agreements, it could face criminal prosecution, civil litigation, significant fines, damage awards or other regulatory consequences. Any or all of these outcomes could have a material adverse effect on the Company's business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
On February 11, 2010, Western Union Financial Services, Inc. ("WUFSI"), a subsidiary of the Company, signed a settlement agreement ("Southwest Border Agreement"), which resolved all outstanding legal issues and claims with the State of Arizona (the "State") and required the Company to fund a multi-state not-for-profit organization promoting safety and security along the United States and Mexico border, in which California, Texas and New Mexico are participating with the State. As part of the Southwest Border Agreement, the Company has made and expects to make certain investments in its anti-money laundering ("AML") compliance programs along the United States and Mexico border and a monitor (the "Monitor") has been engaged for those programs. The Company has incurred, and expects to continue to incur, significant costs in connection with the Southwest Border Agreement. The Monitor has made a number of primary and secondary recommendations related to WUFSI's compliance programs, which WUFSI has implemented or is implementing, including programs related to the Company's Business Solutions segment.
On January 31, 2014, the Southwest Border Agreement was amended to extend its term until December 31, 2017 (the "Amendment"). The Amendment imposes additional obligations on the Company and WUFSI in connection with WUFSI’s AML compliance programs and cooperation with law enforcement. In particular, the Amendment requires WUFSI to continue implementing the primary and secondary recommendations made by the Monitor, and includes, among other things, timeframes for implementing such primary and secondary recommendations. Under the Amendment, the Monitor could make additional primary recommendations until January 1, 2015 and may make additional secondary recommendations until January 31, 2017. After these dates, the Monitor may only make additional primary or secondary recommendations, as applicable, that meet certain requirements as set forth in the Amendment.
WUFSI implemented all of the primary recommendations prior to October 31, 2015. On June 29, 2016, the Monitor notified WUFSI and the State that the Monitor had determined that (i) WUFSI had successfully implemented all of the primary recommendations, and (ii) WUFSI has implemented an effective AML compliance program along the United States and Mexico border. On July 27, 2016, the Monitor delivered its final report for the primary recommendations period and the Superior Court of Arizona in and for Maricopa County accepted the report. Accordingly, the State cannot pursue any remedies under the Southwest Border Agreement with respect to the primary recommendations.
The Amendment also provides until June 30, 2017 for implementation of the secondary recommendations, and provides a deadline of December 31, 2017 for the Monitor to issue a report evaluating implementation of the secondary recommendations. If the Monitor concludes in that report that WUFSI has not implemented an effective AML compliance program along the United States and Mexico border, the State cannot assert a willful and material breach of the Southwest Border Agreement but may require WUFSI to pay $25 million (the "Secondary Period Remedy"). There is no monetary penalty associated with secondary recommendations that were classified as such on the date of the Amendment or any new secondary recommendations that the Monitor makes after the date of the Amendment. There are currently 15 such secondary recommendations and groups of secondary recommendations.
The Amendment requires WUFSI to continue funding the Monitor’s reasonable expenses in $500,000 increments as requested by the Monitor. The Amendment also requires WUFSI to make a one-time payment of $250,000, which was paid in March 2014, and thereafter $150,000 per month for five years to fund the activities and expenses of a money transfer transaction data analysis center formed by WUFSI and a Financial Crimes Task Force comprised of federal, state and local law enforcement representatives, including those from the State. In addition, California, Texas, and New Mexico are participating in the money transfer transaction data analysis center.
The changes in WUFSI’s AML compliance program required by the Southwest Border Agreement, including the Amendment, and the Monitor’s recommendations have had, and will continue to have, adverse effects on the Company’s business, including additional costs. The Company is unable at this stage to predict whether the Monitor will conclude at the end of the timeframe for implementing the secondary recommendations that WUFSI has successfully implemented the secondary recommendations and has an effective AML compliance program, and, accordingly, whether the State will pursue the Secondary Period Remedy. For additional information, see Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 5, "Commitments and Contingencies."
Our fees, profit margins and/or foreign exchange spreads may be reduced or limited because of regulatory initiatives and changes in laws and regulations or their interpretation and industry practices and standards that are either industry wide or specifically targeted at our Company.
The evolving regulatory environment, including increased fees or taxes, regulatory initiatives, and changes in laws and regulations or their interpretation, industry practices and standards imposed by state, federal or foreign governments and expectations regarding our compliance efforts, is impacting the manner in which we operate our business, may change the competitive landscape and is expected to continue to adversely affect our financial results. New and proposed legislation relating to financial services providers and consumer protection in various jurisdictions around the world has and may continue to affect the manner in which we provide our services; see risk factor "The Dodd-Frank Act, as well as the regulations required by that Act and the actions of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and similar legislation and regulations enacted by other government authorities, could adversely affect us and the scope of our activities, and could adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows." Recently proposed and enacted legislation related to financial services providers and consumer protection in various jurisdictions around the world and at the federal and state level in the United States has subjected and may continue to subject us to additional regulatory oversight, mandate additional consumer disclosures and remedies, including refunds to consumers, or otherwise impact the manner in which we provide our services. If governments implement new laws or regulations that limit our right to set fees and/or foreign exchange spreads, then our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows could be adversely affected. In addition, changes in regulatory expectations, interpretations or practices could increase the risk of regulatory enforcement actions, fines and penalties. For example, we recently entered into the Joint Settlement Agreements, as further discussed in Part I, Item 3, Legal Proceedings, and Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 5, "Commitments and Contingencies."
Further, our business has been affected and is currently being affected by on-going changes to our compliance procedures related to our settlement agreement with the State of Arizona. See risk factor "Western Union is the subject of consent agreements with or enforcement actions by regulators." Due to regulatory initiatives, we have changed our compliance related practices and business model along the United States and Mexico border, including in the southwestern region of the United States. Such changes have had, and will likely continue to have an adverse effect on our revenue, profit margins, and business operations related to our United States to Mexico and United States to Latin America and the Caribbean corridors.
In addition, policy makers may seek heightened customer due diligence requirements on, or restrict, remittances from the United States to Mexico. Policy makers have also discussed potential legislation to add taxes to remittances from the United States to Mexico and/or other countries. Further, one state has passed a law imposing a fee on certain money transfer transactions, and certain other states have proposed similar legislation. Several foreign countries have enacted or proposed rules imposing taxes or fees on certain money transfer transactions, as well. The approach of policy makers, the ongoing budget shortfalls in many jurisdictions, combined with future federal action or inaction on immigration reform, may lead other states or localities to impose similar taxes or fees, or other requirements or restrictions. Similar circumstances in foreign countries have invoked and could continue to invoke the imposition of sales, service or similar taxes, or other requirements or restrictions, on money transfer services. A tax, fee, or other requirement or restriction exclusively on money transfer services like Western Union could put us at a competitive disadvantage to other means of remittance which are not subject to the same taxes, fees, requirements or restrictions. Other examples of changes to our financial environment include the possibility of regulatory initiatives that focus on lowering international remittance costs. Such initiatives may have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
Regulators around the world look at each other's approaches to the regulation of the payments and other industries. Consequently, a development in any one country, state or region may influence regulatory approaches in other countries, states or regions. Similarly, new laws and regulations in a country, state or region involving one service may cause lawmakers there to extend the regulations to another service. As a result, the risks created by any one new law or regulation are magnified by the potential they have to be replicated, affecting our business in another place or involving another service. Conversely, if widely varying regulations come into existence worldwide, we may have difficulty adjusting our services, fees and other important aspects of our business, with the same effect. Either of these eventualities could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
Regulatory initiatives and changes in laws, regulations and industry practices and standards affecting us, our agents or their subagents, or the banks with which we or our agents maintain bank accounts needed to provide our services could require changes in our business model and increase our costs of operations, which could adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations, and liquidity.
Our agents and their subagents are subject to a variety of regulatory requirements, which differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and are subject to change. Material changes in the regulatory requirements for offering money transfer services, including with respect to anti-money laundering requirements, fraud prevention, licensing requirements, consumer protection, customer due diligence, agent registration, or increased requirements to monitor our agents or their subagents in a jurisdiction important to our business have meant and could continue to mean increased costs and/or operational demands on our agents and their subagents, which have resulted and could continue to result in their attrition, a decrease in the number of locations at which money transfer services are offered, an increase in the commissions paid to agents and their subagents to compensate for their increased costs, and other negative consequences.
Our regulatory status and the regulatory status of our agents could affect our and their ability to offer our services. For example, we and our agents rely on bank accounts to provide our Consumer-to-Consumer money transfer services. We also rely on bank accounts to provide our payment services. We and our agents are considered Money Service Businesses, or "MSBs," under the BSA, including our Business Solutions operations. Many banks view MSBs, as a class, as higher risk customers for purposes of their anti-money laundering programs. The recent Joint Settlement Agreements may prompt some banks to take this view regarding Western Union. We and some of our agents have had, and in the future may have, difficulty establishing or maintaining banking relationships due to the banks' policies. If we or a significant number of our agents are unable to maintain existing or establish new banking relationships, or if we or these agents face higher fees to maintain or establish new bank accounts, our ability and the ability of our agents to continue to offer our services may be adversely impacted, which would have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
The types of enterprises that are legally authorized to act as our agents vary significantly from one country to another. Changes in the laws affecting the kinds of entities that are permitted to act as money transfer agents (such as changes in requirements for capitalization or ownership) could adversely affect our ability to distribute our services and the cost of providing such services, both by us and our agents. For example, a requirement that a money transfer provider be a bank or other highly regulated financial entity could increase significantly the cost of providing our services in many countries where that requirement does not exist today or could prevent us from offering our services in an affected country. Further, any changes in law that would require us to provide money transfer services directly to consumers as opposed to through an agent network (which would effectively change our business model) or that would prohibit or impede the use of subagents could significantly adversely impact our ability to provide our services, and/or the cost of our services, in the relevant jurisdiction. Changes mandated by laws which make Western Union responsible for acts of its agents while they are providing the Western Union money transfer service increase our risk of regulatory liability and our costs to monitor our agents' performance.
Although most of our Orlandi Valuta and Vigo branded agents also offer money transfer services of our competitors, many of our Western Union branded agents have agreed to offer only our money transfer services. While we expect to continue signing certain agents under exclusive arrangements and believe that these agreements are valid and enforceable, changes in laws regulating competition or in the interpretation of those laws could undermine our ability to enforce them in the future. Various jurisdictions, including the European Union and some of its member countries, continue to increase their focus on the potential impact of agent agreements on competition. In addition, over the past several years, several countries in Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Africa and South Asia, including India, have promulgated laws or regulations, or authorities in these countries have issued orders, which effectively prohibit payment service providers, such as money transfer companies, from agreeing to exclusive arrangements with agents in those countries. Certain institutions, non-governmental organizations and others are actively advocating against exclusive arrangements in money transfer agent agreements. Advocates for laws prohibiting or limiting exclusive agreements continue to push for enactment of similar laws in other jurisdictions. In addition to legal challenges, certain of our agents and their subagents have refused to enter into exclusive arrangements. See risk factor "If we are unable to maintain our agent, subagent or global business relationships under terms consistent with those currently in place, including due to increased costs or loss of business as a result of increased compliance requirements or difficulty for us, our agents or their subagents in establishing or maintaining relationships with banks needed to conduct our services, or if our agents or their subagents fail to comply with Western Union business and technology standards and contract requirements, our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows would be adversely affected" above. The inability to enter into exclusive arrangements or to maintain our exclusive rights in agent contracts in certain situations could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows by, for example, allowing competitors to benefit from the goodwill associated with the Western Union brand at our agent locations.
In addition to legal or regulatory restrictions discussed in the "Capital Resources and Liquidity" section in Part II, Item 7, Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, some jurisdictions use tangible net worth and other financial strength guidelines to evaluate financial position. If our regulated subsidiaries do not abide by these guidelines, they may be subject to heightened review by these jurisdictions, and the jurisdictions may be more likely to impose new formal financial strength requirements. Additional financial strength requirements imposed on our regulated subsidiaries or significant changes in the regulatory environment for money transfer providers could impact our primary source of liquidity.
The Dodd-Frank Act, as well as the regulations required by that Act and the actions of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and similar legislation and regulations enacted by other government authorities, could adversely affect us and the scope of our activities, and could adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
As final rules and regulations implementing the Dodd-Frank Act have been adopted, the new law has made and is making significant structural reforms and new substantive regulation across the financial services industry. In addition, the Dodd-Frank Act created the CFPB, whose purpose is to implement, examine for compliance with and enforce federal consumer protection laws governing financial products and services, including money transfer services. The CFPB has created additional regulatory obligations for us and has the authority to examine and supervise us and our larger competitors, including for matters related to unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices ("UDAAP"). The CFPB's regulations implementing the remittance provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act have affected our business in a variety of areas. These include: a requirement to provide almost all consumers sending funds internationally from the United States enhanced, written, pre-transaction disclosures, including the disclosure of fees, foreign exchange rates and taxes, an obligation to resolve various errors, including certain errors that may be outside our control, and an obligation at a consumer's request to cancel transactions that have not been completed. In addition, these regulations impose responsibility on us for any related compliance failures of our agents. These requirements have changed the way we operate our business and along with other potential changes under CFPB regulations could adversely affect our operations and financial results and change the way we operate our business. The Dodd-Frank Act and interpretations and actions by the CFPB could also have a significant impact on us by, for example, requiring us to limit or change our business practices, limiting our ability to pursue business opportunities, requiring us to invest valuable management time and resources in compliance efforts, imposing additional costs on us, delaying our ability to respond to marketplace changes, requiring us to alter our products and services in a manner that would make them less attractive to consumers and impair our ability to offer them profitably, or requiring us to make other changes that could adversely affect our business.
The CFPB has broad authority to enforce consumer protection laws. The CFPB has a large staff and budget, which is not subject to Congressional appropriation, and has broad authority with respect to our money transfer service and related business. It is authorized to collect fines and provide consumer restitution in the event of violations, engage in consumer financial education, track and solicit consumer complaints, request data and promote the availability of financial services to underserved consumers and communities. For example, in July 2015, Paymap, Inc. ("Paymap"), one of our subsidiaries, and the CFPB reached a settlement agreement regarding Paymap’s marketing of its Equity Accelerator service (the "Paymap Settlement Agreement"). Under the terms of the agreement, Paymap agreed to pay approximately $33.4 million in restitution and a $5.0 million civil monetary penalty and agreed to ensure that its marketing practices and materials for the Equity Accelerator Program comply with the Consumer Financial Protection Act's prohibition against UDAAP. In addition, the CFPB may adopt other regulations governing consumer financial services, including regulations defining UDAAP, and new model disclosures. The CFPB's authority to change regulations adopted in the past by other regulators, or to rescind or ignore past regulatory guidance, could increase our compliance costs and litigation exposure. Our litigation exposure may also be increased by the CFPB's authority to limit or ban pre-dispute arbitration clauses. The Dodd-Frank Act authorized the CFPB to conduct a study on pre-dispute arbitration clauses and, based on the study, potentially limit or ban arbitration clauses. In 2015, the CFPB released its report to Congress on pre-dispute arbitration as required by the Dodd-Frank Act and also published a potential rulemaking on arbitration agreements. In May 2016, the CFPB issued its proposed arbitration rule that would (i) effectively ban consumer financial companies from using arbitration clauses to prevent class action cases and (ii) require records of all other arbitrations to be provided to the CFPB for potential publication on its website. The timing and provision of any final rule are uncertain at this time.
We have been and will continue to be subject to examination by the CFPB, which in September 2014 finalized a rule defining "larger participants of a market for other consumer financial products or services" as including companies, such as Western Union, that make at least one million aggregate annual international money transfers. The CFPB has the authority to examine and supervise us and our larger competitors, which will involve providing reports to the CFPB. The CFPB has used information gained in examinations as the basis for enforcement actions resulting in settlements involving monetary penalties and other remedies.
The effect of the Dodd-Frank Act and the CFPB on our business and operations has been and will continue to be significant and the application of the Dodd-Frank Act's implementing regulations to our business may differ from the application to certain of our competitors, including banks. Further, and in addition to our own compliance costs, implementation of requirements under Dodd-Frank could impact our business relationships with financial institution customers who outsource processing of consumer transactions to our Business Solutions segment. These financial institutions may determine that the compliance costs associated with providing consumer services are too burdensome and consequently may limit or discontinue offering such services.
Rules adopted under the Dodd-Frank Act by the CFTC, as well as the provisions of the European Market Infrastructure Regulation and its technical standards, which are directly applicable in the member states of the European Union, have subjected most of our foreign exchange hedging transactions, including certain intercompany hedging transactions, certain of the corporate interest rate hedging transactions we may enter into in the future, and certain of the foreign exchange derivative contracts we offer as part of our Business Solutions segment, to reporting, recordkeeping, and other requirements. Additionally, certain of the corporate interest rate hedging transactions and foreign exchange derivatives transactions we may enter into in the future may be subject to centralized clearing requirements, or may be subject to margin requirements in the United States and European Union. Other jurisdictions outside of the United States and the European Union are considering, have implemented, or are implementing regulations similar to those described above. Derivatives regulations have added costs to our business and any additional requirements, such as future registration requirements and increased regulation of derivative contracts, will result in additional costs or impact the way we conduct our hedging activities as well as impact how we conduct our business within our Business Solutions segment. In particular, the CFTC has recently issued a proposed rule that, if adopted as proposed, would increase the likelihood that we will have to register one or more of our subsidiaries with the CFTC as a swap dealer. Swap dealers are subject to a comprehensive regulatory framework and compliance with this framework will lead to additional costs, including costs relating to regulatory capital and margin requirements, and may impact how we conduct our hedging activities and derivatives business with customers. We are currently evaluating the impact the proposed rule, if adopted, would have on our hedging activities and operations. Our implementation of these requirements has resulted, and will continue to result, in additional costs to our business. Furthermore, our failure to implement these requirements correctly could result in fines and other sanctions, as well as necessitate a temporary or permanent cessation to some or all of our derivative related activities. Any such fines, sanctions or limitations on our business could adversely affect our operations and financial results. Additionally, the regulatory regimes for derivatives in the United States and European Union, such as under the Dodd-Frank Act and the European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive known as "MiFID II," are continuing to evolve and changes to such regimes, our designation under such regimes, or the implementation of new rules under such regimes, such as future registration requirements and increased regulation of derivative contracts, may result in additional costs to our business. Other jurisdictions outside the United States and the European Union are considering, have implemented, or are implementing regulations similar to those described above and these will result in greater costs to us as well.
Western Union is the subject of litigation, including purported class action litigation, and regulatory actions, which could result in material settlements, judgments, fines or penalties.
As a company that provides global financial services primarily to consumers, we are subject to litigation, including purported class action litigation, and regulatory actions alleging violations of consumer protection, anti-money laundering, securities laws and other laws, both foreign and domestic. We also are subject to claims asserted by consumers based on individual transactions. We may not be successful in defending ourselves in these matters, and such failure may result in substantial fines, damages and expenses, revocation of required licenses or other limitations on our ability to conduct business. Any of these outcomes could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows. Further, we believe increasingly strict legal and regulatory requirements and increased regulatory investigations and enforcement, any of which could occur or intensify as a result of the Joint Settlement Agreements, are likely to continue to result in changes to our business, as well as increased costs, supervision and examination for both ourselves and our agents and subagents. These developments in turn may result in additional litigation, or other actions. For more information, please see Part I, Item 3, Legal Proceedings and Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 5, "Commitments and Contingencies."
Current and proposed regulation addressing consumer privacy and data use and security could increase our costs of operations, which could adversely affect our operations, results of operations and financial condition.
We are subject to extensive requirements relating to privacy and data use and security under federal, state and foreign laws. For example, the FTC has an on-going program of investigating the privacy practices of companies and has commenced enforcement actions against many, resulting in multi-million dollar settlements and multi-year agreements governing the settling companies' privacy practices. Furthermore, certain industry groups require us to adhere to privacy requirements in addition to federal, state and foreign laws, and certain of our business relationships depend upon our compliance with these requirements. As the number of countries enacting privacy and related laws increases and the scope of these laws and enforcement efforts expand, we will increasingly become subject to new and varying requirements. For example, in April 2016, the European Parliament approved a comprehensive new General Data Privacy Regulation (“GDPR”) that will replace the EU’s 1995 data privacy Directive 95/46 as of May 2018. The GDPR will impose additional obligations and risks upon our businesses, including the risk of substantially increased penalties for non-compliance. Such penalties could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows. We are analyzing the GDPR to determine its potential effects on our business practices, but we expect to incur significant expenses to meet the new obligations of the GDPR, which may require us to make significant changes to our business operations not only within the EU, but also in the United States and other countries. Failure to comply with existing or future privacy and data use and security laws, regulations, and requirements to which we are subject or could become subject, including by reason of inadvertent disclosure of confidential information, could result in fines, sanctions, penalties or other adverse consequences and loss of consumer confidence, which could materially adversely affect our results of operations, overall business, and reputation.
In addition, in connection with regulatory requirements to assist in the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing and pursuant to legal obligations and authorizations, Western Union makes information available to certain United States federal, state, and foreign government agencies when required by law. In recent years, Western Union has experienced an increasing number of data sharing requests by these agencies, particularly in connection with efforts to prevent terrorist financing or reduce the risk of identity theft. During the same period, there has also been increased public attention to the corporate use and disclosure of personal information, accompanied by legislation and regulations intended to strengthen data protection, information security and consumer privacy. These regulatory goals - the prevention of money laundering, terrorist financing and identity theft and the protection of the individual's right to privacy - may conflict, and the law in these areas is not consistent or settled. The legal, political and business environments in these areas are rapidly changing, and subsequent legislation, regulation, litigation, court rulings or other events could expose Western Union to increased program costs, liability and reputational damage.
We are subject to unclaimed property laws, and differences between the amounts we have accrued for unclaimed property and amounts that are claimed by a state or foreign jurisdiction could have a significant impact on our results of operations and cash flows.
We are subject to unclaimed property laws in the United States and abroad which require us to turn over to certain government authorities the property of others held by us that has been unclaimed for a specified period of time, such as unpaid money transfers and money orders. We have an ongoing program to help us comply with those laws. In addition, we are subject to audits with regard to our escheatment practices. Any difference between the amounts we have accrued for unclaimed property and amounts that are claimed by a state or foreign jurisdiction could have a significant impact on our results of operations and cash flows.
Our consolidated balance sheet may not contain sufficient amounts or types of regulatory capital to meet the changing requirements of our various regulators worldwide, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
Our regulators expect us to possess sufficient financial soundness and strength to adequately support our regulated subsidiaries. We had substantial indebtedness as of December 31, 2016 and expect to incur additional indebtedness in 2017, which could make it more difficult to meet these requirements if such requirements are increased. In addition, although we are not a bank holding company for purposes of United States law or the law of any other jurisdiction, as a global provider of payments services and in light of the changing regulatory environment in various jurisdictions, we could become subject to new capital requirements introduced or imposed by our regulators that could require us to issue securities that would qualify as Tier 1 regulatory capital under the Basel Committee accords or retain earnings over a period of time. Also, our regulators specify the amount and composition of settlement assets that certain of our subsidiaries must hold in order to satisfy our outstanding settlement obligations. These regulators could further restrict the type of instruments that qualify as settlement assets or these regulators could require our regulated subsidiaries to maintain higher levels of settlement assets. Any change or increase in these regulatory requirements could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Risks Relating to the Spin-Off
We were incorporated in Delaware as a wholly-owned subsidiary of First Data on February 17, 2006. On September 29, 2006, First Data distributed 100% of its money transfer and consumer payments businesses and its interest in a Western Union money transfer agent, as well as related assets, including real estate, through a tax-free distribution to First Data shareholders (the "Spin-off") through this previously owned subsidiary. The consolidated United States federal income tax return for First Data for 2006, which included the Company, has been examined by the IRS and no adjustments were proposed relating to the tax treatment of the Spin-Off. However, certain other adjustments were proposed by the IRS and are being contested through the IRS appeals process. Accordingly, the statute of limitations covering First Data’s 2006 return has not yet closed.
If the Spin-off does not qualify as a tax-free transaction, First Data and its stockholders could be subject to material amounts of taxes and, in certain circumstances, we could be required to indemnify First Data for material taxes pursuant to indemnification obligations under the tax allocation agreement.
First Data received a private letter ruling from the IRS to the effect that the Spin-off (including certain related transactions) qualifies as a tax-free transaction to First Data, us and First Data stockholders for United States federal income tax purposes under sections 355, 368 and related provisions of the Internal Revenue Code, assuming, among other things, the accuracy of the representations made by First Data to the IRS in the private letter ruling request. If the factual assumptions or representations made in the private letter ruling request were determined to be untrue or incomplete, then First Data and we would not be able to rely on the ruling.
The Spin-off was conditioned upon First Data's receipt of an opinion of Sidley Austin LLP, counsel to First Data, to the effect that, with respect to requirements on which the IRS did not rule, those requirements would be satisfied. The opinion was based on, among other things, certain assumptions and representations as to factual matters made by First Data and us which, if untrue or incomplete, would jeopardize the conclusions reached by counsel in its opinion. The opinion is not binding on the IRS or the courts, and the IRS or the courts may not agree with the opinion.
If, notwithstanding receipt of the private letter ruling and an opinion of tax counsel, the Spin-off were determined to be a taxable transaction, each holder of First Data common stock who received shares of our common stock in connection with the Spin-off would generally be treated as receiving a taxable distribution in an amount equal to the fair value of our common stock received. First Data would recognize taxable gain equal to the excess of the fair value of the consideration received by First Data in the contribution over First Data's tax basis in the assets contributed to us in the contribution. If First Data were unable to pay any taxes for which it is responsible under the tax allocation agreement, the IRS might seek to collect such taxes from Western Union.
Even if the Spin-off otherwise qualified as a tax-free distribution under section 355 of the Internal Revenue Code, the Spin-off may result in significant United States federal income tax liabilities to First Data if 50% or more of First Data's stock or our stock (in each case, by vote or value) is treated as having been acquired, directly or indirectly, by one or more persons as part of a plan (or series of related transactions) that includes the Spin-off. For purposes of this test, any acquisitions, or any understanding, arrangement or substantial negotiations regarding an acquisition, within two years before or after the Spin-off are subject to special scrutiny.
With respect to taxes and other liabilities that could be imposed as a result of a final determination that is inconsistent with the anticipated tax consequences of the Spin-off (as set forth in the private letter ruling and relevant tax opinion) ("Spin-off Related Taxes"), we, one of our affiliates or any person that, after the Spin-off, is an affiliate thereof, will be liable to First Data for any such Spin-off Related Taxes attributable solely to actions taken by or with respect to us. In addition, we will also be liable for 50% of any Spin-off Related Taxes (i) that would not have been imposed but for the existence of both an action by us and an action by First Data or (ii) where we and First Data each take actions that, standing alone, would have resulted in the imposition of such Spin-off Related Taxes. We may be similarly liable if we breach certain representations or covenants set forth in the tax allocation agreement. If we are required to indemnify First Data for taxes incurred as a result of the Spin-off being taxable to First Data, it likely would have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS
Not applicable.
ITEM 2. PROPERTIES
Properties and Facilities
As of December 31, 2016, we had offices in approximately 50 countries, which included four owned facilities and approximately 20 United States and approximately 400 international leased properties. Our owned facilities included our corporate headquarters located in Englewood, Colorado.
Our owned and leased facilities are used for operational, sales and administrative purposes in support of our Consumer-to-Consumer, Consumer-to-Business, and Business Solutions segments and are all currently being utilized. In certain locations, our offices include customer service centers, where our employees answer operational questions from agents and customers. Our office in Dublin, Ireland serves as our international headquarters.
We believe that our facilities are suitable and adequate for our current business; however, we periodically review our facility requirements and may acquire new facilities and update existing facilities to meet the needs of our business or consolidate and dispose of or sublet facilities which are no longer required.
ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
United States Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and State Attorneys General Settlements
In late November 2016, the Company entered into discussions with the United States Department of Justice (the “DOJ”), the United States Attorney's Office for the Central District of California ("USAO-CDCA"), the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ("USAO-EDPA"), the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania ("USAO-MDPA"), and the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida (“USAO-SDFL”) to resolve the investigations by the USAO-CDCA, USAO-EDPA, USAO-MDPA, and USAO-SDFL (collectively, the “USAOs”) (collectively, the “USAO Investigations”). On January 19, 2017, the Company announced that it, or its subsidiary Western Union Financial Services, Inc. (“WUFSI”), had entered into (1) a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (the “DPA”) with the DOJ and the USAOs; (2) a Stipulated Order for Permanent Injunction and Final Judgment (the “Consent Order”) with the United States Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”); and (3) a Consent to the Assessment of Civil Money Penalty with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) of the United States Department of Treasury (the “FinCEN Agreement”), to resolve the respective investigations of those agencies. The DOJ and FTC investigations are described further in Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 5, "Commitments and Contingencies." FinCEN provided notice to the Company dated December 16, 2016 of its investigation regarding possible violations of the United States Bank Secrecy Act. On January 31, 2017, the Company entered into an assurance of discontinuance/assurance of voluntary compliance (the “State AG Agreement”) with the attorneys general of 49 U.S. states and the District of Columbia named therein (the “State Attorneys General”) to resolve the State Attorneys General investigations described further in Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 5, "Commitments and Contingencies." The DPA, Consent Order, FinCEN Agreement, and State AG Agreement are collectively referred to herein as the "Joint Settlement Agreements."
Pursuant to the DPA, the USAOs filed a two-count criminal information in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, charging the Company with aiding and abetting wire fraud and willfully failing to implement an effective anti-money laundering program. The USAOs agreed that if the Company fully complies with all of its obligations under the DPA, the USAOs will, at the conclusion of the DPA’s term, seek dismissal with prejudice of the criminal information filed against the Company.
Under the Joint Settlement Agreements, the Company is required, among other things, to (1) pay an aggregate amount of $586 million to the DOJ to be used to reimburse consumers who were the victims of third-party fraud conducted through the Company’s money transfer services (the “Compensation Payment”), (2) pay an aggregate amount of $5 million to the State Attorneys General to reimburse investigative, enforcement, and other costs, and (3) retain an independent compliance auditor for three years to review and assess actions taken by the Company under the Consent Order to further enhance its oversight of agents and protection of consumers. The FinCEN Agreement also sets forth a civil penalty of $184 million, the full amount of which is deemed satisfied by the Compensation Payment, without any additional payment or non-monetary obligations. No separate payment to the FTC is required under the Joint Settlement Agreements.
The Joint Settlement Agreements also require the Company to adopt certain new or enhanced practices with respect to its compliance program relating to, among other things, consumer reimbursement, agent due diligence, agent training, monitoring, reporting, and record-keeping by the Company and its agents, consumer fraud disclosures, and agent suspensions and terminations. The changes in the Company’s compliance program required by the Joint Settlement Agreements will have adverse effects on the Company’s business, including additional costs and potential loss of business. The Company could also face actions from other regulators as a result of the Joint Settlement Agreements. In addition, if the Company fails to comply with the Joint Settlement Agreements, it could face criminal prosecution, civil litigation, significant fines, damage awards or other regulatory consequences. Any or all of these outcomes could have a material adverse effect on the Company's business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
Shareholder Actions
On January 13, 2014, Natalie Gordon served the Company with a Verified Shareholder Derivative Complaint and Jury Demand that was filed in District Court, Douglas County, Colorado naming the Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer, one of its former executive officers, one of its former directors, and all but one of its current directors as individual defendants, and the Company as a nominal defendant. The complaint asserts claims for breach of fiduciary duty and gross mismanagement against all of the individual defendants and unjust enrichment against the President and Chief Executive Officer and the former executive officer based on allegations that between February 12, 2012 to October 30, 2012, the individual defendants made or caused the Company to issue false and misleading statements or failed to make adequate disclosures regarding the effects of the Southwest Border Agreement, including regarding the anticipated costs of compliance with the Southwest Border Agreement, potential effects on business operations, and Company projections. Plaintiff also alleges that the individual defendants caused or allowed the Company to lack requisite internal controls, caused or allowed financial statements to be misstated, and caused the Company to be subject to the costs, expenses and liabilities associated with City of Taylor Police and Fire Retirement System v. The Western Union Company, et al., a lawsuit that was subsequently renamed and dismissed. Plaintiff further alleges that the Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer and the former executive officer received excessive compensation based on the allegedly inaccurate financial statements. On March 12, 2014, the Court entered an order granting the parties' joint motion to stay proceedings in the case during the pendency of certain of the shareholder derivative actions described below.
In 2014, Stanley Lieblein, R. Andre Klein, City of Cambridge Retirement System, Mayar Fund Ltd, Louisiana Municipal Police Employees' Retirement System, MARTA/ATU Local 732 Employees Retirement Plan, and The Police Retirement System of St. Louis filed shareholder derivative complaints in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado (or were removed to the United States District Court for the District of Colorado) naming the Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer and certain current and former directors and a former executive officer as individual defendants, and the Company as a nominal defendant. On January 5, 2015, the court entered an order consolidating the actions and appointing City of Cambridge Retirement System and MARTA/ATU Local 732 Employees Retirement Plan as co-lead plaintiffs. On February 4, 2015, co-lead plaintiffs filed a verified consolidated shareholder derivative complaint naming the Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer, two of its former executive officers and all but two of its current directors as individual defendants, and the Company as a nominal defendant. The consolidated complaint asserts separate claims for breach of fiduciary duty against the director defendants and the officer defendants, claims against all of the individual defendants for violations of section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act"), corporate waste and unjust enrichment, and a claim against the former executive officer for breach of fiduciary duties for insider selling and misappropriation of information. The breach of fiduciary duty claim against the director defendants includes allegations that they declined to implement an effective anti-money laundering compliance system after receiving numerous red flags indicating prolonged willful illegality, obstructed the Southwest Border Monitor's efforts to impose effective compliance systems on the Company, failed to take action in response to alleged Western Union management efforts to undermine the Monitor, reappointed the same directors to the Audit Committee and Corporate Governance and Public Policy Committees constituting a majority of those committees between 2006 and 2014, appointed a majority of directors to the Compliance Committee who were directly involved in overseeing the alleged misconduct as members of the Audit Committee and the Corporate Governance and Public Policy Committee, caused the Company to materially breach the Southwest Border Agreement, caused the Company to repurchase its stock at artificially inflated prices, awarded the Company’s senior executives excessive compensation despite their responsibility for the Company’s alleged willful non-compliance with state and federal anti-money laundering laws, and failed to prevent the former executive officer from misappropriating and profiting from nonpublic information when making allegedly unlawful stock sales. The breach of fiduciary duty claim against the officer defendants includes allegations that they caused the Company and allowed its agents to ignore the recording and reporting requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act and parallel anti-money laundering laws and regulations for a prolonged period of time, authorized and implemented anti-money laundering policies and practices that they knew or should have known to be inadequate, caused the Company to fail to comply with the Southwest Border Agreement and refused to implement and maintain adequate internal controls. The claim for violations of section 14(a) of the Exchange Act includes allegations that the individual defendants caused the Company to issue proxy statements in 2012, 2013 and 2014 containing materially incomplete and inaccurate disclosures - in particular, by failing to disclose the extent to which the Company’s financial results depended on the non-compliance with AML requirements, the Board’s awareness of the regulatory and criminal enforcement actions in real time pursuant to the 2003 Consent Agreement with the California Department of Financial Institutions and that the directors were not curing violations and preventing misconduct, the extent to which the Board considered the flood of increasingly severe red flags in their determination to re-nominate certain directors to the Audit Committee between 2006 and 2010, and the extent to which the Board considered ongoing regulatory and criminal investigations in awarding multi-million dollar compensation packages to senior executives. The corporate waste claim includes allegations that the individual defendants paid or approved the payment of undeserved executive and director compensation based on the illegal conduct alleged in the consolidated complaint, which exposed the Company to civil liabilities and fines. The corporate waste claim also includes allegations that the individual defendants made improper statements and omissions, which forced the Company to expend resources in defending itself in City of Taylor Police and Fire Retirement System v. The Western Union Company, et al., a lawsuit that was subsequently renamed and dismissed, authorized the repurchase of over $1.565 billion of the Company’s stock at prices they knew or recklessly were aware, were artificially inflated, failed to maintain sufficient internal controls over the Company’s marketing and sales process, failed to consider the interests of the Company and its shareholders, and failed to conduct the proper supervision. The claim for unjust enrichment includes allegations that the individual defendants derived compensation, fees and other benefits from the Company and were otherwise unjustly enriched by their wrongful acts and omissions in managing the Company. The claim for breach of fiduciary duties for insider selling and misappropriation of information includes allegations that the former executive sold Company stock while knowing material, nonpublic information that would have significantly reduced the market price of the stock. On March 16, 2015, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the consolidated complaint. On March 31, 2016, the Court entered an order granting the defendants’ collective motion to dismiss without prejudice, denying as moot a separate motion to dismiss that was filed by the former executive officer, and staying the order for 30 days, within which plaintiffs may file an amended complaint that cures the defects noted in the order. On May 2, 2016, co-lead plaintiffs filed a verified amended consolidated shareholder derivative complaint naming the Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer, eight of its current directors (including the Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer, who also serves as a director) and one of its former directors as individual defendants, and the Company as a nominal defendant. The amended complaint, among other things, drops the claims against the former executive officer named in the prior complaint, realleges and narrows the breach of fiduciary duty claims, and drops the remaining claims. On June 15, 2016, defendants filed a motion to dismiss the amended consolidated shareholder derivative complaint. On August 1, 2016, plaintiffs filed an opposition to the motion to dismiss. On September 1, 2016, defendants filed a reply brief in support of the motion to dismiss. On January 20, 2017, Plaintiffs filed a notice of new case developments with the Court, attaching the DPA, the criminal information filed in the United States District Court for the Middle
District of Pennsylvania, and the FTC’s January 19, 2017 Complaint for Permanent Injunctive and Other Equitable Relief and the Consent Order referenced in the United States Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and State Attorneys General Settlements section above.
All of the actions described above under "Shareholder Actions" are in a preliminary stage and the Company is unable to predict the outcome, or reasonably estimate the possible loss or range of loss, if any, which could be associated with these actions. The Company and the named individuals intend to vigorously defend themselves in all of these matters.
Other Matters
On March 12, 2014, Jason Douglas filed a purported class action complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois asserting a claim under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227, et seq., based on allegations that since 2009, the Company has sent text messages to class members’ wireless telephones without their consent. During the first quarter of 2015, the Company's insurance carrier and the plaintiff reached an agreement to create an $8.5 million settlement fund that will be used to pay all class member claims, class counsel’s fees and the costs of administering the settlement. The agreement has been signed by the parties and, on November 10, 2015, the Court granted preliminary approval to the settlement. The Company accrued an amount equal to the retention under its insurance policy in previous quarters and believes that any amounts in excess of this accrual will be covered by the insurer. However, if the Company's insurer is unable to or refuses to satisfy its obligations under the policy or the parties are unable to reach a definitive agreement or otherwise agree on a resolution, the Company's financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows could be adversely impacted. As the parties have reached an agreement in this matter, the Company believes that the potential for additional loss in excess of amounts already accrued is remote.
On February 10, 2015, Caryn Pincus filed a purported class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida against Speedpay, Inc. (“Speedpay”), a subsidiary of the Company, asserting claims based on allegations that Speedpay imposed an unlawful surcharge on credit card transactions and that Speedpay engages in money transmission without a license. The complaint requests certification of a class and two subclasses generally comprised of consumers in Florida who made a payment through Speedpay’s bill payment services using a credit card and were charged a surcharge for such payment during the four-year and five-year periods prior to the filing of the complaint through the date of class certification. On April 6, 2015, Speedpay filed a motion to dismiss the complaint. On April 23, 2015, in response to the motion to dismiss, Pincus filed an amended complaint that adds claims (1) under the Florida Civil Remedies for Criminal Practices Act, which authorizes civil remedies for certain criminal conduct; and (2) for violation of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ("RICO"). On May 15, 2015, Speedpay filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint. On October 6, 2015, the Court entered an order denying Speedpay’s motion to dismiss. On October 20, 2015, Speedpay filed an answer to the amended complaint. On December 1, 2015, Pincus filed a second amended complaint that revised her factual allegations, but added no new claims. On December 18, 2015, Speedpay filed an answer to the second amended complaint. On May 20, 2016, Speedpay filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings as to Pincus' Florida Civil Remedies for Criminal Practices Act and federal RICO claims. On June 7, 2016, Pincus filed an opposition to Speedpay's motion for judgment on the pleadings. On June 17, 2016, Speedpay filed a reply brief in support of the motion. On October 28, 2016, Pincus filed a motion seeking class certification. The motion seeks the certification of a class consisting of “All (i) persons in Florida (ii) who paid Speedpay, Inc. a fee for using Speedpay, Inc.’s electronic payment services (iii) during the five year period prior to the filing of the complaint in this action through the present.” Pincus also filed a motion to file her motion under seal. On November 4, 2016, the Court denied Pincus’ motion for class certification without prejudice and motion to seal and ordered her to file a new motion that redacts proprietary and private information. Later that day, Pincus filed a redacted version of the motion. On November 7, 2016, Speedpay filed a motion for summary judgment on Pincus’ remaining claims. On December 15, 2016, Speedpay filed an opposition to Pincus’ class certification motion. The same day, Pincus filed an opposition to Speedpay’s summary judgment motion and requested summary judgment on her individual and class claims. On January 12, 2017, Speedpay filed a reply in support of its summary judgment motion and Pincus filed a reply in support of her class certification motion. As this action is in a preliminary stage, the Company is unable to predict the outcome, or the possible loss or range of loss, if any, which could be associated with this action. Speedpay intends to vigorously defend itself in this matter.
On January 26, 2017, Martin Herman filed a purported class action complaint in the United States District Court for the Central District of California against the Company, its President and Chief Executive Officer, its Chief Financial Officer, and a former executive officer of the Company, asserting claims under sections 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Securities and Exchange Commission rule 10b-5 against all defendants and a claim under section 20(a) of the Exchange Act against the individual defendants. The complaint alleges that, during the purported class period, February 24, 2012 through January 19, 2017, defendants made false or misleading statements or failed to disclose adverse material facts known to them, including those regarding: (1) the effectiveness of the Company’s fraud prevention program and the program’s compliance with applicable law and best practices; (2) the development and enhancement of the Company’s global compliance policies and anti-money laundering program; and (3) the Company’s compliance with regulatory requirements. This action is in a preliminary stage and the Company is unable to predict the outcome, or the possible loss or range of loss, if any, which could be associated with this action. The Company and the named individuals intend to vigorously defend themselves in this matter.
On February 22, 2017, Lawrence Henry Smallen and Laura Anne Smallen Revocable Living Trust filed a purported class action complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. The defendants, class period, claims and bases are the same as those in the purported class action complaint filed by Martin Herman described above. This action is in a preliminary stage and the Company is unable to predict the outcome, or the possible loss or range of loss, if any, which could be associated with this action. The Company and the named individuals intend to vigorously defend themselves in this matter.
On February 13, 2017, the Company’s subsidiary, Western Union Payment Services Ireland Limited (“WUPSIL”), was served with a writ of accusation from the National Court of Spain. The writ charges 98 former Western Union money transfer agents or agent representatives with fraud and money laundering in connection with consumer fraud scams they allegedly perpetrated using Western Union money transfer transactions. The writ also names WUPSIL as a civil defendant, allegedly responsible under Spanish law to pay any portion of the alleged €17.5 million ($18.4 million based on the December 31, 2016 exchange rate) in victim losses that cannot be repaid by any of the criminal defendants who are convicted. The Company expects that WUPSIL will be required to guarantee or provide security for up to approximately €23.5 million ($24.7 million) to cover the alleged victim losses plus potential interest and other costs. Due to the preliminary stage of this matter, the Company is unable to predict the outcome, or the amount of loss, if any, associated with this matter. However, based on the amounts alleged, the range of loss could be up to approximately €23.5 million ($24.7 million).
In addition to the principal matters described above and the matters described in Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 5, "Commitments and Contingencies," the Company is a party to a variety of other legal matters that arise in the normal course of the Company's business. While the results of these other legal matters cannot be predicted with certainty, management believes that the final outcome of these matters will not have a material adverse effect either individually or in the aggregate on the Company's financial condition, results of operations, or cash flows.
ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES
Not applicable.
PART II
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ITEM 5. | MARKET FOR REGISTRANT'S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES |
Our common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "WU." There were 3,688 stockholders of record as of February 15, 2017. This figure does not include an estimate of the indeterminate number of beneficial holders whose shares may be held of record by brokerage firms and clearing agencies. The following table presents the high and low prices of the common stock on the New York Stock Exchange as well as dividends declared per share during the calendar quarter indicated.
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| | | | | | | | | | | |
| Common Stock | | Dividends |
| Market Price | | Declared |
| High | | Low | | per Share |
2016 | | | | | |
First Quarter | $ | 19.61 |
| | $ | 16.02 |
| | $ | 0.16 |
|
Second Quarter | $ | 20.57 |
| | $ | 18.07 |
| | $ | 0.16 |
|
Third Quarter | $ | 21.80 |
| | $ | 18.81 |
| | $ | 0.16 |
|
Fourth Quarter | $ | 22.26 |
| | $ | 19.38 |
| | $ | 0.16 |
|
2015 | | | | | |
First Quarter | $ | 20.87 |
| | $ | 16.73 |
| | $ | 0.155 |
|
Second Quarter | $ | 22.84 |
| | $ | 20.02 |
| | $ | 0.155 |
|
Third Quarter | $ | 20.62 |
| | $ | 16.91 |
| | $ | 0.155 |
|
Fourth Quarter | $ | 19.90 |
| | $ | 17.75 |
| | $ | 0.155 |
|
The following table sets forth stock repurchases for each of the three months of the quarter ended December 31, 2016:
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Period | | Total Number of Shares Purchased* | | Average Price Paid per Share | | Total Number of Shares Purchased as Part of Publicly Announced Plans or Programs** | | Remaining Dollar Value of Shares that May Yet Be Purchased Under the Plans or Programs (In millions) |
October 1 - 31 | | 437,972 |
| | $ | 20.13 |
| | 427,644 |
| | $ | 301.1 |
|
November 1 - 30 | | 3,376,358 |
| | $ | 20.52 |
| | 3,369,670 |
| | $ | 231.9 |
|
December 1 - 31 | | 70,863 |
| | $ | 20.79 |
| | 68,027 |
| | $ | 230.5 |
|
Total | | 3,885,193 |
| | $ | 20.48 |
| | 3,865,341 |
| | |
____________
|
| |
* | These amounts represent both shares authorized by the Board of Directors for repurchase under a publicly announced authorization, as described below, as well as shares withheld from employees to cover tax withholding obligations on restricted stock units that have vested. |
** | On February 10, 2015, the Board of Directors authorized $1.2 billion of common stock repurchases through December 31, 2017, of which $230.5 million remained available as of December 31, 2016. On February 9, 2017, the Board of Directors authorized $1.2 billion of common stock repurchases through December 31, 2019. In certain instances, management has historically and may continue to establish prearranged written plans pursuant to Rule 10b5-1. A Rule 10b5-1 plan permits us to repurchase shares at times when we may otherwise be unable to do so, provided the plan is adopted when we are not aware of material non-public information. |
Refer to Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 16, "Stock Compensation Plans" and Part III, Item 12, Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters for information related to our equity compensation plans.
Dividend Policy and Share Repurchases
During 2016, the Board of Directors declared quarterly cash dividends of $0.16 per common share payable on December 30, 2016, September 30, 2016, June 30, 2016 and March 31, 2016. During 2015, the Board of Directors declared quarterly cash dividends of $0.155 per common share payable on December 31, 2015, September 30, 2015, June 30, 2015 and March 31, 2015. The declaration or authorization and amount of future dividends or share repurchases will be determined by the Board of Directors and will depend on our financial condition, earnings, cash generated or made available in the United States, capital requirements, regulatory constraints, industry practice and any other factors that the Board of Directors believes are relevant. As a holding company with no material assets other than the capital stock of our subsidiaries, our ability to pay dividends or repurchase shares in future periods will be dependent primarily on our ability to use cash generated by our operating subsidiaries. Several of our operating subsidiaries are subject to financial services regulations and their ability to pay dividends and distribute cash may be restricted.
On February 9, 2017, the Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.175 per common share payable on March 31, 2017.
ITEM 6. SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA
The financial information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K is presented on a consolidated basis and includes the accounts of the Company and our majority-owned subsidiaries. Our selected historical financial data are not necessarily indicative of our future financial condition, future results of operations or future cash flows.
You should read the information set forth below in conjunction with our historical consolidated financial statements and the notes to those statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Year Ended December 31, |
(in millions, except per share data) | 2016 | | 2015 | | 2014 | | 2013 |
| 2012 |
Statements of Income Data: | | | | | | | | | |
Revenues | $ | 5,422.9 |
| | $ | 5,483.7 |
| | $ | 5,607.2 |
| | $ | 5,542.0 |
| | $ | 5,664.8 |
|
Operating expenses (a) | 4,939.2 |
| | 4,374.3 |
| | 4,466.7 |
| | 4,434.6 |
| | 4,334.8 |
|
Operating income (a) | 483.7 |
| | 1,109.4 |
| | 1,140.5 |
| | 1,107.4 |
| | 1,330.0 |
|
Interest income (b) | 3.5 |
| | 10.9 |
| | 11.5 |
| | 9.4 |
| | 5.5 |
|
Interest expense (c) | (152.5 | ) | | (167.9 | ) | | (176.6 | ) | | (195.6 | ) | | (179.6 | ) |
Other income/(expense), net, excluding interest income and interest expense | 7.0 |
| | (10.6 | ) | | (7.2 | ) | | 5.7 |
| | 12.9 |
|
Income before income taxes (a) (b) (c) | 341.7 |
| | 941.8 |
| | 968.2 |
| | 926.9 |
| | 1,168.8 |
|
Net income (a) (b) (c) | 253.2 |
| | 837.8 |
| | 852.4 |
| | 798.4 |
| | 1,025.9 |
|
Depreciation and amortization | 263.2 |
| | 270.2 |
| | 271.9 |
| | 262.8 |
| | 246.1 |
|
Cash Flow Data: | | | | | | | | | |
Net cash provided by operating activities (d) | $ | 1,041.9 |
| | $ | 1,071.1 |
| | $ | 1,045.9 |
| | $ | 1,088.6 |
| | $ | 1,185.3 |
|
Capital expenditures (e) | (229.8 | ) | | (266.5 | ) | | (179.0 | ) | | (241.3 | ) | | (268.2 | ) |
Common stock repurchased (f) | (501.6 | ) | | (511.3 | ) | | (495.4 | ) | | (399.7 | ) | | (766.5 | ) |
Earnings Per Share Data: | | | | | | | | | |
Basic (a) (b) (c) (f) | $ | 0.52 |
| | $ | 1.63 |
| | $ | 1.60 |
| | $ | 1.43 |
| | $ | 1.70 |
|
Diluted (a) (b) (c) (f) | $ | 0.51 |
| | $ | 1.62 |
| | $ | 1.59 |
| | $ | 1.43 |
| | $ | 1.69 |
|
Cash dividends declared per common share (g) | $ | 0.64 |
| | $ | 0.62 |
| | $ | 0.50 |
| | $ | 0.50 |
| | $ | 0.425 |
|
Key Indicators (unaudited): | | | | | | | | | |
Consumer-to-Consumer transactions | 268.33 |
| | 261.53 |
| | 254.93 |
| | 242.34 |
| | 230.98 |
|
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| As of December 31, |
(in millions) | 2016 | | 2015 | | 2014 | | 2013 | | 2012 |
Balance Sheet Data: | | | | | | | | | |
Settlement assets | $ | 3,749.1 |
| | $ | 3,308.7 |
| | $ | 3,313.7 |
| | $ | 3,270.4 |
| | $ | 3,114.6 |
|
Total assets (h) | 9,419.6 |
| | 9,449.2 |
| | 9,877.5 |
| | 10,105.4 |
| | 9,450.4 |
|
Settlement obligations | 3,749.1 |
| | 3,308.7 |
| | 3,313.7 |
| | 3,270.4 |
| | 3,114.6 |
|
Total borrowings (h) | 2,786.1 |
| | 3,215.9 |
| | 3,707.5 |
| | 4,197.1 |
| | 4,013.9 |
|
Total liabilities (h) | 8,517.4 |
| | 8,044.3 |
| | 8,577.1 |
| | 9,000.7 |
| | 8,509.8 |
|
Total stockholders’ equity | 902.2 |
| | 1,404.9 |
| | 1,300.4 |
| | 1,104.7 |
| | 940.6 |
|
____________
|
| |
(a) | During the year ended December 31, 2016, operating expenses included $601.0 million of expenses as a result of the Joint Settlement Agreements, as described in Part I, Item 3, Legal Proceedings, and Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 5, "Commitments and Contingencies." During the year ended December 31, 2015, operating expenses included $35.3 million of expenses as a result of the Paymap Settlement Agreement. |
| |
(b) | Interest income consists of interest earned on cash balances not required to satisfy settlement obligations. |
| |
(c) | Interest expense primarily relates to our outstanding borrowings. |
| |
(d) | Net cash provided by operating activities during the year ended December 31, 2012 was impacted by tax payments of $92.4 million made as a result of an agreement with the United States Internal Revenue Service ("IRS Agreement") resolving substantially all of the issues related to the restructuring of our international operations in 2003. |
| |
(e) | Capital expenditures include capitalization of contract costs, capitalization of purchased and developed software and purchases of property and equipment. |
| |
(f) | On February 10, 2015, the Board of Directors authorized $1.2 billion of common stock repurchases through December 31, 2017, of which $230.5 million remained available as of December 31, 2016. On February 9, 2017, the Board of Directors authorized $1.2 billion of common stock repurchases through December 31, 2019. During the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012, we repurchased 24.8 million, 25.1 million, 29.3 million, 25.7 million, and 51.0 million shares, respectively. |
| |
(g) | Cash dividends per share declared quarterly by the Company's Board of Directors were as follows: |
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Year | | Q1 | | Q2 | | Q3 | | Q4 |
2016 | | $ | 0.16 |
| | $ | 0.16 |
| | $ | 0.16 |
| | $ | 0.16 |
|
2015 | | $ | 0.155 |
| | $ | 0.155 |
| | $ | 0.155 |
| | $ | 0.155 |
|
2014 | | $ | 0.125 |
| | $ | 0.125 |
| | $ | 0.125 |
| | $ | 0.125 |
|
2013 | | $ | 0.125 |
| | $ | 0.125 |
| | $ | 0.125 |
| | $ | 0.125 |
|
2012 | | $ | 0.10 |
| | $ | 0.10 |
| | $ | 0.10 |
| | $ | 0.125 |
|
|
| |
(h) | On January 1, 2016, the Company adopted an accounting pronouncement that requires capitalized debt issuance costs to be presented as a reduction to the carrying value of debt, with adoption retrospective for periods previously presented. The adoption of this standard resulted in a reduction to the carrying value of Total assets, Total borrowings, and Total liabilities for equivalent amounts in each applicable year. Reductions in these balances were $9.7 million, $12.9 million, $15.9 million, and $15.3 million as of December 31, 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012, respectively. |
ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
You should read the following discussion in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and the notes to those statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains certain statements that are forward-looking within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Certain statements contained in the Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements are not historical facts, but rather are based on current expectations, estimates, assumptions and projections about our industry, business and future financial results. Our actual results could differ materially from the results contemplated by these forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including those discussed in other sections of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. See "Risk Factors" and "Forward-looking Statements."
Overview
We are a leading provider of money movement and payment services, operating in three business segments:
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• | Consumer-to-Consumer - The Consumer-to-Consumer operating segment facilitates money transfers between two consumers, primarily through a network of third-party agents. Our multi-currency, real-time money transfer service is viewed by us as one interconnected global network where a money transfer can be sent from one location to another, around the world. Our money transfer services are available for international cross-border transfers - that is, the transfer of funds from one country to another - and, in certain countries, intra-country transfers - that is, money transfers from one location to another in the same country. This segment also includes money transfer transactions that can be initiated through websites and mobile devices. |
| |
• | Consumer-to-Business - The Consumer-to-Business operating segment facilitates bill payments from consumers to businesses and other organizations, including utilities, auto finance companies, mortgage servicers, financial service providers and government agencies. The significant majority of the segment's revenue was generated in the United States during all periods presented, with the remainder primarily generated in Argentina. |
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• | Business Solutions - The Business Solutions operating segment facilitates payment and foreign exchange solutions, primarily cross-border, cross-currency transactions, for small and medium size enterprises and other organizations and individuals. The majority of the segment's business relates to exchanges of currency at spot rates, which enable customers to make cross-currency payments. In addition, in certain countries, we write foreign currency forward and option contracts for customers to facilitate future payments. |
All businesses that have not been classified in the above segments are reported as "Other" and include our money order and other services, in addition to costs for the review and closing of acquisitions.
Corporate costs, including stock-based compensation and other overhead, are allocated to the segments primarily based on a percentage of the segments' revenue compared to total revenue.
Results of Operations
The following discussion of our consolidated results of operations and segment results refers to the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the same period in 2015 and the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the same period in 2014. The results of operations should be read in conjunction with the discussion of our segment results of operations, which provide more detailed discussions concerning certain components of the Consolidated Statements of Income. All significant intercompany accounts and transactions between our segments have been eliminated and the below information has been prepared in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States of America ("GAAP"). All amounts provided in this section are rounded to the nearest tenth of a million, except as otherwise noted. As a result, the percentage changes and margins disclosed herein may not recalculate precisely using the rounded amounts provided.
Our revenues and operating income for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 were negatively impacted by the strengthening of the United States dollar compared to foreign currencies. Please see the "Revenues overview" and "Operating income" sections below for further discussion. Additionally, our operating income for the year ended December 31, 2016 was impacted by $601 million of expenses related to compensation payments and other costs as a result of the Joint Settlement Agreements, described further in Part I, Item 3, Legal Proceedings. Our operating income for the year ended December 31, 2015 was impacted by $35.3 million of expenses related to restitution, penalties, and other costs as a result of the Paymap Settlement Agreement. Both the Joint Settlement Agreements and the Paymap Settlement Agreement have been reflected within "Selling, general and administrative" expenses in our Consolidated Statements of Income.
The following table sets forth our consolidated results of operations for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014.
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | % Change |
| Year Ended December 31, | | 2016 | | 2015 |
(in millions, except per share amounts) | 2016 | | 2015 | | 2014 | | vs. 2015 | | vs. 2014 |
Revenues: | | | | | | | | | |
Transaction fees | $ | 3,795.1 |
| | $ | 3,915.6 |
| | $ | 4,083.6 |
| | (3 | )% | | (4 | )% |
Foreign exchange revenues | 1,490.2 |
| | 1,436.2 |
| | 1,386.3 |
| | 4 | % | | 4 | % |
Other revenues | 137.6 |
| | 131.9 |
| | 137.3 |
| | 4 | % | | (4 | )% |
Total revenues | 5,422.9 |
| | 5,483.7 |
| | 5,607.2 |
| | (1 | )% | | (2 | )% |
Expenses: | | | | | | | | | |
Cost of services | 3,270.0 |
| | 3,199.4 |
| | 3,297.4 |
| | 2 | % | | (3 | )% |
Selling, general and administrative | 1,669.2 |
| | 1,174.9 |
| | 1,169.3 |
| | 42 | % | | 0 | % |
Total expenses | 4,939.2 |
| | 4,374.3 |
| | 4,466.7 |
| | 13 | % | | (2 | )% |
Operating income | 483.7 |
| | 1,109.4 |
| | 1,140.5 |
| | (56 | )% | | (3 | )% |
Other income/(expense): | | | | | | | | | |
Interest income | 3.5 |
| | 10.9 |
| | 11.5 |
| | (68 | )% | | (5 | )% |
Interest expense | (152.5 | ) | | (167.9 | ) | | (176.6 | ) | | (9 | )% | | (5 | )% |
Derivative gains/(losses), net | 4.5 |
| | 1.2 |
| | (2.2 | ) | | (a) |
| | (a) |
|
Other income/(expense), net | 2.5 |
| | (11.8 | ) | | (5.0 | ) | | (a) |
| | (a) |
|
Total other expense, net | (142.0 | ) | | (167.6 | ) | | (172.3 | ) | | (15 | )% | | (3 | )% |
Income before income taxes | 341.7 |
| | 941.8 |
| | 968.2 |
| | (64 | )% | | (3 | )% |
Provision for income taxes | 88.5 |
| | 104.0 |
| | 115.8 |
| | (15 | )% | | (10 | )% |
Net income | $ | 253.2 |
| | $ | 837.8 |
| | $ | 852.4 |
| | (70 | )% | | (2 | )% |
Earnings per share: | | | | | | | | | |
Basic | $ | 0.52 |
| | $ | 1.63 |
| | $ | 1.60 |
| | (68 | )% | | 2 | % |
Diluted | $ | 0.51 |
| | $ | 1.62 |
| | $ | 1.59 |
| | (69 | )% | | 2 | % |
Weighted-average shares outstanding: | | | | | | |
| |
|
Basic | 490.2 |
| | 512.6 |
| | 533.4 |
| |
| |
|
Diluted | 493.5 |
| | 516.7 |
| | 536.8 |
| | | | |
____________
|
| |
(a) | Calculation not meaningful. |
Revenues overview
Transaction volume is the primary generator of revenue in our businesses. Revenue on transactions is derived primarily from transaction fees and foreign exchange revenues paid by consumers to transfer money or make payments. Consumer-to-Consumer revenues vary by transaction based upon send and receive locations and the principal amount sent and in certain consumer money transfer, bill payment and Business Solutions transactions involving different send and receive currencies, we generate foreign exchange revenues based on the difference between the exchange rate set by us to the consumer or business and the rate available in the wholesale foreign exchange market.
Due to the significance of the effect that foreign exchange fluctuations against the United States dollar can have on our reported revenues and operating income, constant currency results have been provided in tables below for consolidated revenues and operating income. Additionally, due to the significance of our Consumer-to-Consumer segment to our overall results, we have also provided constant currency results for our Consumer-to-Consumer segment revenue results. Constant currency results assume foreign revenues and expenses are translated from foreign currencies to the United States dollar, net of the effect of foreign currency hedges, at rates consistent with those in the prior year. Constant currency measures are non-GAAP financial measures and are provided so that revenue and operating income can be viewed without the effect of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, which is consistent with how management evaluates our revenue and operating income results and trends. We believe that these measures provide management and investors with information about operating results and trends that eliminates currency volatility and provides greater clarity regarding, and increases the comparability of, our underlying results and trends. These constant currency disclosures are provided in addition to, and not as a substitute for, the percentage change in revenue and operating income on a GAAP basis for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 compared to prior year. Other companies may calculate and define similarly labeled items differently, which may limit the usefulness of this measure for comparative purposes.
The following table sets forth our consolidated revenue results for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014.
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | % Change |
| Year Ended December 31, | | 2016 | | 2015 |
(dollars in millions) | 2016 | | 2015 | | 2014 | | vs. 2015 | | vs. 2014 |
Revenues, as reported - (GAAP) | $ | 5,422.9 |
| | $ | 5,483.7 |
| | $ | 5,607.2 |
| | (1 | )% | | (2 | )% |
Foreign currency impact (a) | | | | | | | 4 | % | | 6 | % |
Revenue change, constant currency adjusted - (Non-GAAP) |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| | 3 | % | | 4 | % |
|
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(a) | The strengthening of the United States dollar compared to foreign currencies, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges, resulted in a reduction to revenues of $217.1 million and $322.6 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, when compared to foreign currency rates in the prior year. |
We use foreign currency forwards to hedge certain foreign exchange impacts on our forecasted revenues. To the extent these derivatives are effective in managing our foreign exchange risk, we reflect the hedge impact in revenues in the period the hedged revenues are recorded. Foreign currency hedges benefited GAAP revenues by $48.0 million, $77.8 million, and $1.6 million for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014, respectively.
2016 compared to 2015
During the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to 2015, consolidated revenues decreased 1%. This was primarily due to the strengthening of the United States dollar compared to foreign currencies, which negatively impacted revenue by 4%, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges. This decrease was partially offset by transaction growth of 3% in our Consumer-to-Consumer segment for the year ended December 31, 2016. The increase in revenue on a constant currency basis of 3% was primarily due to Consumer-to-Consumer transaction growth and increases in our Consumer-to-Business revenue, as further described in "Segment Discussion" below.
2015 compared to 2014
During the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to 2014, consolidated revenues decreased 2% primarily due to the strengthening of the United States dollar compared to foreign currencies, which negatively impacted revenue by 6%, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges. This decrease was partially offset by transaction growth of 3% in our Consumer-to-Consumer segment for the year ended December 31, 2015. The increase in revenue on a constant currency basis of 4% was primarily due to Consumer-to-Consumer transaction growth and increases in our Consumer-to-Business revenue, as further described in "Segment Discussion" below.
Operating expenses overview
Enhanced regulatory compliance
The financial services industry, including money services businesses, continues to be subject to increasingly strict legal and regulatory requirements, and we continue to focus on and regularly review our compliance programs. In connection with these reviews, and in light of growing and rapidly evolving regulatory complexity and heightened attention of, and increased dialogue with, governmental and regulatory authorities related to our compliance activities, we have made, and continue to make enhancements to our processes and systems designed to detect and prevent money laundering, terrorist financing, and fraud and other illicit activity, along with enhancements to improve consumer protection, including related to our settlement agreement with the State of Arizona, the Joint Settlement Agreements, described further in Part I, Item 3, Legal Proceedings, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and similar regulations outside the United States, and other matters. In coming periods, we expect these enhancements will continue to result in changes to certain of our business practices and increased costs. Some of these changes have had, and we believe will continue to have, an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Cost of services
Cost of services primarily consists of agent commissions, which represented approximately 60% of total cost of services for the year ended December 31, 2016. Cost of services increased for the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the prior year due to increased technology expenses and increased bank fees in our United States electronic bill payments, partially offset by a decrease in agent commissions, which generally fluctuate with revenues.
Cost of services decreased for the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the prior year due to variable costs that generally fluctuate with revenues, including agent commissions, and benefits from and lower costs related to productivity and cost-savings initiatives, partially offset by increased technology expenses. For further discussion of our productivity and cost-savings initiatives, see Note 3 to Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.
Selling, general and administrative
Selling, general and administrative expenses increased for the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the prior year due to expenses related to the Joint Settlement Agreements in the amount of $601 million, as described earlier, and consulting expenses related to a business transformation initiative. This increase was partially offset by expenses related to the Paymap Settlement Agreement in the amount of $35.3 million that was recorded in the second quarter of 2015 and reductions in employee compensation costs and advertising expenses. Additionally, the strengthening of the United States dollar compared to foreign currencies resulted in a positive impact on the translation of our expenses.
Selling, general and administrative expenses were flat for the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the prior year and were impacted by the Paymap Settlement Agreement, increased incentive compensation expenses, and increased compliance program costs (see "Enhanced regulatory compliance"), partially offset by benefits from and lower costs related to productivity and cost-savings initiatives. Additionally, the strengthening of the United States dollar compared to foreign currencies resulted in a positive impact on the translation of our expenses.
Operating income
The following table sets forth our consolidated operating income results for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014. As further discussed in "Revenues overview" above, non-GAAP constant currency results have been provided in the tables below for operating income change. In addition, to assist in evaluating the comparable periods' results, we are including additional line items in the table below reflecting operating income and operating income change excluding the effect of the $601.0 million of expenses as a result of the Joint Settlement Agreements in the year ended December 31, 2016, and the $35.3 million of expenses related to the Paymap Settlement Agreement that were recorded in the second quarter of 2015. Operating income, excluding Joint Settlement Agreements and Paymap Settlement Agreement, and operating income change, constant currency adjusted, excluding Joint Settlement Agreements and Paymap Settlement Agreement, are non-GAAP financial measures and are used by management in evaluating the operating income results and trends. We believe that, by adjusting operating income and operating income change to exclude the effects of the Joint Settlement Agreements and Paymap Settlement Agreement, which impacted operating trends, management and investors are provided with measures that increase the comparability of our underlying operating results. This disclosure is provided in addition to, and not as a substitute for, operating income and operating income change on a GAAP basis.
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | % Change |
| Year Ended December 31, | | 2016 | | 2015 |
(dollars in millions) | 2016 | | 2015 | | 2014 | | vs. 2015 | | vs. 2014 |
Operating income, as reported - (GAAP) | $ | 483.7 |
| | $ | 1,109.4 |
| | $ | 1,140.5 |
| | (56 | )% | | (3 | )% |
Joint Settlement Agreements and Paymap Settlement Agreement | 601.0 |
| | 35.3 |
| | — |
| | | | |
Operating income, excluding Joint Settlement Agreements and Paymap Settlement Agreement - (Non-GAAP) | $ | 1,084.7 |
| | $ | 1,144.7 |
| | $ | 1,140.5 |
| | (5 | )% | | — | % |
Foreign currency impact (a) |
|
| |
|
| | | | 8 | % | | 4 | % |
Operating income change, constant currency adjusted, excluding Joint Settlement Agreements and Paymap Settlement Agreement - (Non-GAAP) |
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| |
| | 3 | % | | 4 | % |
|
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(a) | The strengthening of the United States dollar compared to foreign currencies, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges, resulted in a reduction to operating income of $90.2 million and $45.8 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, when compared to foreign currency rates in the prior year. |
Consolidated operating income decreased 56% during the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the prior year as a result of the changes in revenue and operating expenses described above, primarily due to the Joint Settlement Agreements. In addition to the Joint Settlement Agreements, the strengthening of the United States dollar compared to foreign currencies, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges, negatively impacted operating income by approximately 8% for the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the prior year. The increase in operating income on a constant currency basis of 3%, excluding the Joint Settlement Agreements and the Paymap Settlement Agreement, was primarily due to the increase in constant currency revenue discussed above. We expect to incur significant additional expenses during the year ending December 31, 2017 related to a business transformation initiative that will negatively impact operating income.
Consolidated operating income decreased 3% during the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the prior year as a result of the changes in revenue and operating expenses described above, including the impact from the Paymap Settlement Agreement. The strengthening of the United States dollar compared to foreign currencies, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges, negatively impacted operating income by approximately 4% for the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the prior year. The increase in operating income on a constant currency basis of 4%, excluding the Paymap Settlement Agreement, was primarily due to the increase in constant currency revenue discussed above.
Total other expense, net
Total other expense, net decreased by 15% for the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the prior year primarily due to lower interest expense related to lower average debt balances outstanding. Average debt balances outstanding were $3,127.5 million and $3,636.0 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. The decrease in average debt balances outstanding during the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the prior year was primarily due to the repayment of $250 million of our notes in August 2015, $250 million of our notes in December 2015 and $1 billion of our notes in October 2016, of which $575 million was refinanced through borrowings from our term loan facility.
Total other expense, net during the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the prior year decreased by 3% due to lower interest expense primarily related to lower average debt balances outstanding. Average debt balances outstanding were $3,636.0 million and $3,843.2 million for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively. The decrease in average debt balances outstanding during the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the prior year was primarily due to the repayment of $500 million of our notes in February 2014, $250 million of our notes in August 2015, and $250 million of our notes in December 2015.
Income taxes
Our effective tax rates on pre-tax income were 25.9%, 11.0% and 12.0% for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively. The increase in our effective tax rate for the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to 2015 was primarily due to the tax-related effects of the Joint Settlement Agreements (impact of 15.9%), and an increase in higher-taxed earnings (excluding the Joint Settlement Agreements) compared to lower-taxed foreign earnings, partially offset by the combined effects of various discrete items, including changes in tax contingency reserves. The decrease in our effective tax rate for the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to 2014 was primarily due to various tax planning benefits, some of which are non-recurring, partially offset by changes in the composition of foreign earnings between higher taxed and lower taxed and the combined effects of various discrete items.
We continue to benefit from a significant proportion of profits being foreign-derived and generally taxed at lower rates than our combined federal and state tax rates in the United States. For the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, 260%, 103% and 96%, respectively, of our pre-tax income was derived from foreign sources. Our foreign pre-tax income is subject to tax in multiple foreign jurisdictions, virtually all of which have statutory income tax rates lower than the United States. While the income tax imposed by any one foreign country is not material to us, our overall effective tax rate could be adversely affected by changes in tax laws, both foreign and domestic. Certain portions of our foreign source income are subject to United States federal and state income tax as earned due to the nature of the income, and dividend repatriations of our foreign source income are generally subject to United States federal and state income tax.
We have established contingency reserves for a variety of material, known tax exposures. As of December 31, 2016, the total amount of tax contingency reserves was $365.1 million, including accrued interest and penalties, net of related items. Our tax reserves reflect our judgment as to the resolution of the issues involved if subject to judicial review or other settlement. While we believe that our reserves are adequate to cover reasonably expected tax risks, there can be no assurance that, in all instances, an issue raised by a tax authority will be resolved at a financial cost that does not exceed our related reserve. With respect to these reserves, our income tax expense would include (i) any changes in tax reserves arising from material changes in facts and circumstances (i.e. new information) surrounding a tax issue during the period and (ii) any difference from our tax position as recorded in the financial statements and the final resolution of a tax issue during the period. Such resolution could materially increase or decrease income tax expense in our consolidated financial statements in future periods and could impact our operating cash flows.
Earnings per share
During the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, basic earnings per share were $0.52, $1.63 and $1.60, respectively, and diluted earnings per share were $0.51, $1.62 and $1.59, respectively. Outstanding options to purchase Western Union stock and unvested shares of restricted stock are excluded from basic shares outstanding. Diluted earnings per share reflects the potential dilution that could occur if outstanding stock options at the presented dates are exercised and shares of restricted stock have vested. As of December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, there were 3.4 million, 6.0 million and 15.5 million, respectively, of outstanding options to purchase shares of Western Union stock excluded from the diluted earnings per share calculation under the treasury stock method as their effect was anti-dilutive.
Earnings per share for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 compared to the prior year were impacted by the previously described factors impacting net income, including the Joint Settlement Agreements, which negatively impacted net income for the year ended December 31, 2016 by $1.21 per share, and the Paymap Settlement Agreement, which negatively impacted net income for the year ended December 31, 2015 by $0.05 per share. Earnings per share for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 were also impacted by lower weighted-average shares outstanding. For both the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 compared to the prior year, the lower number of shares outstanding was due to stock repurchases exceeding stock issuances related to the Company's stock compensation programs.
Segment Discussion
We manage our business around the consumers and businesses we serve and the types of services we offer. Each of our three segments addresses a different combination of consumer groups, distribution networks and services offered. Our segments are Consumer-to-Consumer, Consumer-to-Business and Business Solutions. Businesses and services not considered part of these segments are categorized as "Other."
The business segment measurements provided to, and evaluated by, our chief operating decision maker ("CODM") are computed in accordance with the following principles:
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• | The accounting policies of the reportable segments are the same as those described in the summary of significant accounting policies. |
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• | Corporate and other overhead is allocated to the segments primarily based on a percentage of the segments' revenue compared to total revenue. |
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• | The charges associated with the Joint Settlement Agreements were not allocated to our segments. While these items are identifiable to our Consumer-to-Consumer segment, they are not included in the measurement of segment operating income provided to the CODM for purposes of assessing segment performance and decision making with respect to resource allocation. |
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• | We incurred expenses of $20.3 million related to a business transformation initiative, referred to as the WU Way, during the year ended December 31, 2016. A significant majority of these expenses related to consulting service fees. In 2017, we expect to incur further consulting service fees, severance, other implementation costs, such as training, relocation, travel, and other costs related to the initiative. While certain items related to the initiative were identifiable to our segments, they were not included in the measurement of segment operating income provided to the CODM for purposes of assessing segment performance and decision making with respect to resource allocation. As the initiative began in 2016, no expenses related to this business transformation initiative were recognized in the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014. For additional information on this business transformation initiative, see Note 3 to Part II, Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data. |
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• | Costs incurred for the review and closing of acquisitions are included in "Other." |
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• | All items not included in operating income are excluded from the segments. |
The following table sets forth the components of segment revenues as a percentage of the consolidated totals for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014.
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| | | | | | | | |
| Year Ended December 31, |
| 2016 | | 2015 | | 2014 |
Consumer-to-Consumer | 79 | % | | 79 | % | | 80 | % |
Consumer-to-Business | 12 | % | | 12 | % | | 11 | % |
Business Solutions | 7 | % | | 7 | % | | 7 | % |
Other | 2 | % | | 2 | % | | 2 | % |
| 100 | % | | 100 | % | | 100 | % |
Consumer-to-Consumer Segment
The following table sets forth our Consumer-to-Consumer segment results of operations for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014.
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | % Change |
| Year Ended December 31, | | 2016 | | 2015 |
(dollars and transactions in millions) | 2016 | | 2015 | | 2014 | | vs. 2015 | | vs. 2014 |
Revenues: | | | | | | | | | |
Transaction fees | $ | 3,123.8 |
| | $ | 3,221.0 |
| | $ | 3,421.8 |
| | (3 | )% | | (6 | )% |
Foreign exchange revenues | 1,116.0 |
| | 1,057.1 |
| | 998.9 |
| | 6 | % | | 6 | % |
Other revenues | 64.8 |
| | 65.8 |
| | 65.1 |
| | (2 | )% | | 1 | % |
Total revenues | $ | 4,304.6 |
| | $ | 4,343.9 |
| | $ | 4,485.8 |
| | (1 | )% | | (3 | )% |
Operating income | $ | 1,008.7 |
| | $ | 1,042.0 |
| | $ | 1,050.4 |
| | (3 | )% | | (1 | )% |
Operating income margin | 23 | % | | 24 | % | | 23 | % | | | | |
Key indicator: | | | | | | | | | |
Consumer-to-Consumer transactions | 268.33 |
| | 261.53 |
| | 254.93 |
| | 3 | % | | 3 | % |
We view our Consumer-to-Consumer money transfer service as one interconnected global network where a money transfer can be sent from one location to another, around the world. The segment includes five geographic regions whose functions are limited to generating, managing and maintaining agent relationships and localized marketing activities. We include our online money transfer services initiated through Western Union branded websites ("westernunion.com") in our regions. By means of common processes and systems, these regions, including westernunion.com, create an interconnected network for consumer transactions, thereby constituting one global Consumer-to-Consumer money transfer business and one operating segment.
Significant allocations are made in determining the transaction and revenue changes under the regional view in the table that follows. The geographic split for transactions and revenue, including transactions initiated through westernunion.com, is determined based upon the region where the money transfer is initiated and the region where the money transfer is paid. For transactions originated and paid in different regions, we split the transaction count and revenue between the two regions, with each region receiving 50%. For money transfers initiated and paid in the same region, 100% of the transactions and revenue are attributed to that region. Included in each region's transaction and revenue percentages in the tables below are transactions initiated through westernunion.com for the year ended December 31, 2016. Regional results for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014 have also been adjusted to include transactions initiated through westernunion.com. Prior to January 1, 2016, we reported westernunion.com initiated transactions as a separate region with 100% of the corresponding transactions and revenue attributed to that region. Where reported separately in the discussion below, westernunion.com consists of 100% of the transactions and revenue that are initiated through westernunion.com, regardless of where the transactions are paid out.
The table below sets forth revenue and transaction changes by geographic region compared to the prior year. Consumer-to-Consumer segment constant currency revenue growth/(decline) is a non-GAAP financial measure, as further discussed in "Revenues overview" above.
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Year Ended December 31, 2016 | | Year Ended December 31, 2015 |
| Revenue Growth/(Decline), as Reported - (GAAP) | | Foreign Exchange Translation Impact | | Constant Currency Revenue Growth/(Decline) (a) - (Non-GAAP) | | Transaction Growth/(Decline) | | Revenue Growth/(Decline), as Reported - (GAAP) | | Foreign Exchange Translation Impact | | Constant Currency Revenue Growth (a) - (Non-GAAP) | | Transaction Growth/(Decline) |
Consumer-to-Consumer regional growth/(decline): | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
North America | 6 | % | | (1 | )% | | 7 | % | | 7 | % | | 2 | % | | (1 | )% | | 3 | % | | 6 | % |
Europe and CIS | (2 | )% | | (3 | )% | | 1 | % | | 3 | % | | (8 | )% | | (10 | )% | | 2 | % | | 2 | % |
Middle East and Africa | (7 | )% | | (3 | )% | | (4 | )% | | (6 | )% | | (4 | )% | | (5 | )% | | 1 | % | | (1 | )% |
Asia Pacific ("APAC") | (5 | )% | | (3 | )% | | (2 | )% | | (5 | )% | | (5 | )% | | (5 | )% | | 0 | % | | (3 | )% |
Latin America and the Caribbean ("LACA") | 2 | % | | (6 | )% | | 8 | % | | 12 | % | | 3 | % | | (7 | )% | | 10 | % | | 8 | % |
Total Consumer-to-Consumer growth/(decline): | (1 | )% | | (3 | )% | | 2 | % | | 3 | % | | (3 | )% | | (6 | )% | | 3 | % | | 3 | % |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
westernunion.com (b) | 22 | % | | (2 | )% | | 24 | % | | 27 | % | | 21 | % | | (5 | )% | | 26 | % | | 26 | % |
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(a) | Constant currency revenue growth assumes that revenues denominated in foreign currencies are translated to the United States dollar, net of the effect of foreign currency hedges, at rates consistent with those in the prior year. |
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(b) | Westernunion.com revenues have also been included in each region, as described earlier. |
The table below sets forth regional revenues as a percentage of our Consumer-to-Consumer revenue for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014. |
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| Year Ended December 31, |
| 2016 | | 2015 | | 2014 |
Consumer-to-Consumer revenue as a percentage of segment revenue: | | | | | |
North America | 29 | % | | 27 | % | | 26 | % |
Europe and CIS | 26 | % | | 26 | % | | 28 | % |
Middle East and Africa | 19 | % | | 21 | % | | 21 | % |
APAC | 15 | % | | 15 | % | | 15 | % |
LACA | 11 | % | | 11 | % | | 10 | % |
Westernunion.com, which is included in the regional percentages above, represented approximately 8%, 6%, and 5% of our Consumer-to-Consumer revenue for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014, respectively.
Our consumers transferred $80.0 billion, $81.6 billion, and $85.4 billion in Consumer-to-Consumer principal for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015, and 2014, respectively, of which $72.5 billion, $73.6 billion, and $77.2 billion related to cross-border principal, for the same corresponding periods described above.
Revenues
2016 compared to 2015
Consumer-to-Consumer money transfer revenue decreased 1% for the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the prior year. The strengthening of the United States dollar compared to foreign currencies, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges, negatively impacted revenue by 3% for the year ended December 31, 2016. This decline was partially offset by transaction growth of 3%.
Fluctuations in the exchange rate between the United States dollar and other currencies, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges, resulted in a reduction to revenues for the year ended December 31, 2016 of $112.2 million over the previous year. Foreign currency hedges benefited revenues by $48.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2016.
Our North America region experienced increased revenue of 6% for the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the prior year, and transaction growth of 7%. The increase in revenue was primarily due to transaction growth in our United States outbound services, including our United States to Mexico and Latin America corridors.
Our Europe and CIS region experienced decreased revenue of 2% for the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the prior year, and transaction growth of 3%. Fluctuations in the exchange rate between the United States dollar, the euro, the British pound and other currencies, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges, negatively impacted revenue by 3% for the year ended December 31, 2016. Revenue was also negatively impacted by declines in Turkey, partially offset by price increases implemented in the United Kingdom and growth in Germany.
Our Middle East and Africa region experienced decreased revenue of 7% for the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the prior year, and transaction decline of 6%. Fluctuations in the exchange rate between the United States dollar and other currencies negatively impacted revenue by 3% for the year ended December 31, 2016. Declines in oil-producing countries also negatively impacted revenue growth.
Our APAC region experienced decreased revenue of 5% for the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the prior year, and transaction decline of 5%. Fluctuations in the exchange rate between the United States dollar and other currencies, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges, negatively impacted revenue by 3% for the year ended December 31, 2016. Revenue was negatively impacted by actions by the government of India that temporarily reduced its supply of banknotes and declines in transactions originated in oil-producing countries as mentioned in the prior paragraph.
Our LACA region experienced increased revenue of 2% for the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the prior year, and transaction growth of 12%. Fluctuations in the exchange rate between the United States dollar and other currencies, primarily the Argentine peso, negatively impacted revenue by 6% for the year ended December 31, 2016. Price reductions implemented in Argentina also negatively impacted revenue, partially offset by growth from transactions originated in the United States, as discussed above.
Foreign exchange revenues in our Consumer-to-Consumer segment increased 6% for the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the prior year, primarily due to increases in foreign exchange spreads, which were largely offset by corresponding reductions in transaction fees.
We have historically implemented and will likely continue to implement price reductions from time to time in response to competition and other factors. Price reductions generally reduce margins and adversely affect financial results in the short term and may also adversely affect financial results in the long term if transaction volumes do not increase sufficiently. Consumer-to-Consumer net pricing changes had a minimal effect on segment revenue for the year ended December 31, 2016.
2015 compared to 2014
Consumer-to-Consumer money transfer revenue decreased 3% for the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the prior year. The strengthening of the United States dollar compared to foreign currencies, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges, negatively impacted revenue by 6% for the year ended December 31, 2015. This decline was partially offset by transaction growth of 3%.
Fluctuations in the exchange rate between the United States dollar and other currencies, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges, resulted in a reduction to revenues for the year ended December 31, 2015 of $256.0 million over the previous year. Foreign currency hedges benefited revenues by $77.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2015.
Our North America region experienced revenue growth of 2% for the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the prior year and transaction growth of 6%. Fluctuations in the exchange rate between the United States dollar and other currencies, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges, negatively impacted revenue by 1% for the year ended December 31, 2015. The increase in revenue was primarily due to transaction growth in our United States outbound services, including our United States to Mexico and Latin America corridors.
Our Europe and CIS region experienced decreased revenue of 8% for the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the prior year and transaction growth of 2%. Fluctuations in the exchange rate between the United States dollar and the euro and other currencies, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges, negatively impacted revenue by 10% for the year ended December 31, 2015. Transaction declines in Russia also contributed to the decrease in revenue.
Our Middle East and Africa region experienced decreased revenue of 4% for the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the prior year, on decreased transactions of 1%. Fluctuations in the exchange rate between the United States dollar and other currencies negatively impacted revenue by 5% for the year ended December 31, 2015. Transaction declines in several African countries also contributed to the decrease in revenue, partially offset by strength in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Our APAC region experienced decreased revenue of 5% for the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the prior year, on decreased transactions of 3%. Fluctuations in the exchange rate between the United States dollar and other currencies, net of the impact of foreign currency hedges, negatively impacted revenue by 5% for the year ended December 31, 2015. Transaction declines in the Philippines and other Asian inbound markets also contributed to the decrease in revenue, partially offset by growth in Japan.
Our LACA region experienced revenue growth of 3% for the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the prior year, on transaction growth of 8%. The region experienced growth from transactions originated in the United States, as discussed above. The region was also positively impacted by geographic and product mix for the year ended December 31, 2015. Fluctuations in the exchange rate between the United States dollar and other currencies negatively impacted revenue by 7% for the year ended December 31, 2015.
Foreign exchange revenues increased 6% for the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the prior year, primarily due to increases in foreign exchange spreads, which were largely offset by corresponding reductions in transaction fees in certain corridors.
Consumer-to-Consumer net pricing changes had a minimal effect on segment revenue for the year ended December 31, 2015.
Operating income
2016 compared to 2015
Consumer-to-Consumer operating income declined 3% during the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the prior year. Results for the year ended December 31, 2016 were negatively impacted by the strengthening of the United States dollar compared to foreign currencies and increased technology expenses, partially offset by reductions in employee compensation. Operating margins in the segment were also impacted by these factors.
2015 compared to 2014
Consumer-to-Consumer operating income declined 1% during the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to the prior year. Results for the year ended December 31, 2015 were impacted by increased technology expenses, increased compliance program costs, and increased incentive compensation expenses, partially offset by benefits from and lower costs related to productivity and cost-savings initiatives. Results were also impacted by foreign currency translation, as the strengthening of the United States dollar compared to foreign currencies resulted in lower reported revenues and expenses. Revenue declines are described above. The change in operating margins in the segment was primarily due to benefits from foreign currency hedges, as well as the other factors mentioned above.
Consumer-to-Business Segment
The following table sets forth our Consumer-to-Business segment results of operations for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014. As further discussed in "Operating income" above, to assist in evaluating the comparable periods' results, we are including additional line items in the table below reflecting operating income, operating income change and operating income margin excluding the effect of the $35.3 million of expenses as a result of the Paymap Settlement Agreement in the year ended December 31, 2015. This disclosure is provided in addition to, and not as a substitute for, operating income and operating income change on a GAAP basis.
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | % Change |
| Year Ended December 31, | | 2016 | | 2015 |
(dollars in millions) | 2016 | | 2015 | | 2014 | | vs. 2015 | | vs. 2014 |
Revenues: | | | | | | | | | |
Transaction fees | $ | 596.7 |
| | $ | 612.7 |
| | $ | 572.7 |
| | (3 | )% | | 7 | % |
Foreign exchange and other revenues | 24.5 |
| | 25.0 |
| | 26.1 |
| | (2 | )% | | (4 | )% |
Total revenues | $ | 621.2 |
| | $ | 637.7 |
| | $ | 598.8 |
| | (3 | )% | | 6 | % |
Operating income - (GAAP) | $ | 64.4 |
| | $ | 68.6 |
| | $ | 98.7 |
| | (6 | )% | | (30 | )% |
Paymap Settlement Agreement | — |
| | 35.3 |