西聯匯款 (WU) 2024 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and welcome to the Western Union First Quarter 2024 Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note that this event is being recorded.

您好，歡迎參加西聯匯款 2024 年第一季電話會議。 （操作員說明）請注意，該事件正在被記錄。

I would now like to turn the call over to Tom Hadley, Vice President of Investor Relations. Tom, please go ahead.

我現在想將電話轉給投資者關係副總裁湯姆‧哈德利 (Tom Hadley)。湯姆，請繼續。

Thank you. On today's call, we will discuss the company's first quarter 2024 results, and then we will take your questions. The slides that accompany this call and webcast can be found at westernunion.com under the Investor Relations tab and will remain available after the call. Additional operational statistics have been provided in supplemental tables with our press release.

謝謝。在今天的電話會議上，我們將討論該公司 2024 年第一季的業績，然後我們將回答大家的問題。本次電話會議和網路廣播附帶的投影片可在westernunion.com 的「投資者關係」標籤下找到，並將在電話會議結束後繼續提供。我們的新聞稿的補充表格中提供了更多營運統計數據。

Joining me on the call today is our CEO, Devin McGranahan; and our CFO, Matt Cagwin. Today's call is being recorded, and our comments include forward-looking statements.

今天和我一起參加電話會議的是我們的執行長 Devin McGranahan；和我們的財務長馬特·卡格溫。今天的電話會議正在錄音，我們的評論包括前瞻性陳述。

Please refer to the cautionary language in the earnings release and in Western Union's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the 2023 Form 10-K for additional information, concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements.

請參閱收益報告和西聯匯款向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件（包括 2023 年 10-K 表格）中的警示性語言，以了解有關可能導致實際結果與前瞻性陳述存在重大差異的因素的更多資​​訊。

During the call, we will discuss some items that do not conform to generally accepted accounting principles. We have reconciled those items to the most comparable GAAP measures in our earnings release attached to our Form 8-K as well as on our website, westernunion.com, under the Investor Relations section.

在電話會議期間，我們將討論一些不符合公認會計原則的項目。我們已將這些項目與 8-K 表格隨附的收益發布以及我們網站 westunion.com 投資者關係部分下的最具可比性的 GAAP 衡量標準進行了核對。

I will now turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Devin McGranahan.

我現在將把電話轉給我們的執行長德文·麥克格拉納漢 (Devin McGranahan)。

Good afternoon, and welcome to Western Union's First Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. Today, we reported another quarter of steady progress, and I am pleased with the direction of our business under our EVOLVE 2025 strategy.

下午好，歡迎參加西聯匯款 2024 年第一季財務業績電話會議。今天，我們報告了又一個季度的穩定進展，我對 EVOLVE 2025 策略下我們的業務方向感到滿意。

Over the last 18 months, we have been working hard to return our digital business to double-digit revenue growth and to achieve stability in our retail business. This quarter's results further demonstrate that our efforts are working. We delivered positive revenue growth and improved transaction trends in both our retail and our digital businesses in the quarter.

在過去的18個月裡，我們一直在努力使我們的數位業務恢復兩位數的收入成長，並實現零售業務的穩定。本季的結果進一步證明我們的努力正在發揮作用。本季我們的零售和數位業務實現了積極的收入成長並改善了交易趨勢。

Consumer money transfer transactions grew at 6% in the quarter, the third consecutive of 5% or more transaction growth. Excluding the COVID grow over period, this is the first time we have seen 3 consecutive 5%-plus transaction growth quarters since the second quarter of 2014, nearly a decade ago. As I have said before, we strongly believe that the consistent and sustainable transaction growth is the best indicator of the future health of our business.

本季消費者匯款交易成長 6%，是連續第三次交易成長 5% 或以上。排除新冠疫情期間的成長，這是我們自 2014 年第二季（近十年前）以來首次連續 3 個季度交易成長超過 5%。正如我之前所說，我們堅信持續且可持續的交易成長是我們業務未來健康狀況的最佳指標。

In addition to maintaining our transaction momentum, this quarter, we also made significant progress in reducing the spread between transaction growth and revenue growth. As we have previously discussed, closing this gap towards our long-term goal of 200 to 300 basis points is a priority, and we made a lot of progress in the first quarter.

除了保持交易勢頭外，本季我們在縮小交易成長與收入成長之間的差距方面也取得了重大進展。正如我們之前所討論的，縮小與 200 至 300 個基點的長期目標的差距是當務之急，我們在第一季度取得了很大進展。

Our total consumer money transfer we improved the spread between transaction growth and revenue growth by approximately 300 basis points compared to the fourth quarter. And more importantly, in our branded digital business, we improved 500 basis points quarter-over-quarter with our branded digital business now growing adjusted revenue at 9%, which is the highest growth rate we have seen since the third quarter of 2021.

與第四季度相比，我們的消費者匯款總額將交易成長和收入成長之間的差距提高了約 300 個基點。更重要的是，在我們的品牌數位業務中，我們的品牌數位業務較上季提高了 500 個基點，調整後收入目前成長 9%，這是我們自 2021 年第三季以來的最高成長率。

Our confidence in reaching sustainable, profitable revenue growth by 2025 grows each quarter as we see increased stability in our retail business, increased growth in our digital business and ongoing broadening of our consumer services offerings and better customer and agent experiences. We are also achieving these goals while maintaining our industry-leading margins, adjusted margins of 19% to 21%.

我們對到2025 年實現可持續、盈利的收入成長的信心每季都在成長，因為我們看到零售業務的穩定性不斷增強，數位業務的成長不斷加快，消費者服務產品的不斷擴大以及客戶和代理體驗的不斷改善。我們也正在實現這些目標的同時保持業界領先的利潤率，調整後利潤率為 19% 至 21%。

Now switching briefly to the macro. The macro backdrop remains consistent with what we have seen for the last couple of quarters. While beginning to temper, we continue to see elevated inflation and higher interest rates around much of the world. The good news is our customers have found a way to adapt and to continue to send money in similar sizes as they have done in the past. This confirms our belief in the resilience of our customer base, the power of our brand and our at-scale global operating model.

現在暫時切換到巨集。宏觀背景與我們過去幾季所看到的保持一致。在開始緩和的同時，我們繼續看到世界大部分地區的通貨膨脹率和利率上升。好消息是我們的客戶已經找到了一種適應方法並繼續以與過去類似的金額匯款。這證實了我們對客戶群的韌性、品牌的力量以及大規模的全球營運模式的信念。

Our principal per transaction in the quarter was up 1% on a constant currency basis when excluding the positive effects from Iraq, and our customers are broadly sending with similar frequency as they did a year ago.

當排除伊拉克的正面影響時，我們本季每筆交易的本金以固定匯率計算成長了 1%，而且我們的客戶的匯款頻率大致與一年前相似。

For the first quarter, our revenue reached $1.050 billion, reflecting a 3% increase on an adjusted basis. Adjusted earnings per share came in strong at $0.45 or up 5% on a year-over-year basis, which now puts us in a position to increase our outlook for the full year.

第一季度，我們的營收達到 10.5 億美元，調整後成長 3%。調整後每股收益強勁，達到 0.45 美元，年增 5%，這使我們能夠提高全年預期。

In the quarter, we continued to return capital to our shareholders with stock repurchases and dividends totaling $230 million. This brings our cumulative capital return to shareholders since I joined the company in late 2021 to over $1.5 billion. We have facilitated this type of capital return while navigating an uncertain economic backdrop, resetting our market competitive position, exiting Russia, and investing significantly in our products, technology and our go-to-market strategies.

本季度，我們繼續透過股票回購和股利總計 2.3 億美元向股東返還資本。自 2021 年底加入公司以來，這使我們為股東帶來的累積資本回報超過 15 億美元。我們在應對不確定的經濟背景、重置我們的市場競爭地位、退出俄羅斯並對我們的產品、技術和進入市場策略進行大量投資的同時，促進了這種類型的資本回報。

As revenue growth continues to accelerate, we expect to be able to continue to generate strong free cash flows while also investing in our future. Matt will further discuss our financial results in more detail and provide an update to our 2024 outlook later in this call.

隨著營收成長持續加速，我們預計能夠繼續產生強勁的自由現金流，同時投資於我們的未來。 Matt 將在本次電話會議稍後進一步詳細討論我們的財務業績，並提供 2024 年展望的最新資訊。

Over the last year, we have made significant progress on our most important strategic initiatives, including improving our retail operations, updating our digital platforms, elevating our customer and agent experiences and enhancing our overall value proposition in the marketplace. This focus on our strategic priorities is leading to the improved financial results we reported today. And while we have made substantial progress, we believe there are still opportunities to continue to improve our overall operating performance.

去年，我們在最重要的策略舉措上取得了重大進展，包括改善我們的零售業務、更新我們的數位平台、提升我們的客戶和代理商體驗以及增強我們在市場上的整體價值主張。對我們策略重點的關注導致了我們今天報告的財務表現的改善。儘管我們取得了實質進展，但我們相信仍有機會繼續改善我們的整體經營績效。

Now on to our retail business. Immigration around the world is showing no signs of slowing down. In the U.S., for example, the migrant population hit 51 million people earlier this year, which is a new record and accounts for roughly 15% of the U.S. population and approximately 20% of the U.S. workforce according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

現在談談我們的零售業務。世界各地的移民沒有顯示出放緩的跡象。以美國為例，根據移民研究中心的數據，今年早些時候，移民人口達到 5,100 萬人，創下新紀錄，約占美國人口的 15%，約占美國勞動力的 20%。

It was also reported that since the pandemic, migrant workers in the U.S. have increased by 3 million, while at the same time, the U.S. born workforce is down roughly 1 million people. Our research would indicate that many migrants start their remittance journey in a retail setting for a variety of important reasons. Given the likely future ongoing growth and migration around the world, we believe that macro trends support the fact that we can indeed stabilize our retail business, while at the same time, growing our digital and consumer services businesses.

另據報道，疫情以來，美國的移工增加了300萬人，而同時，美國本土勞動力減少了約100萬人。我們的研究表明，許多移民出於各種重要原因在零售環境中開始匯款之旅。考慮到未來世界各地可能持續成長和移民，我們相信宏觀趨勢支持這樣一個事實：我們確實可以穩定我們的零售業務，同時發展我們的數位和消費者服務業務。

As you remember from our Investor Day, we view our retail business as the gateway to Western Union. Over the last couple of years, we have seen more than 20 million new remittance customers annually in our agent retail locations around the world. These are 20 million new opportunities to showcase our brand, to build trust, to highlight our improved customer experience and to start a relationship with our customers that will hopefully last decades.

正如您在投資者日所記得的那樣，我們將零售業務視為通往西聯匯款的門戶。在過去的幾年裡，我們在世界各地的代理商零售點每年新增超過 2,000 萬名匯款客戶。這是 2000 萬個新的機會來展示我們的品牌、建立信任、突出我們改善的客戶體驗以及與客戶建立有望持續數十年的關係。

While many new migrants start their remittance journey in a retail setting, over time, a meaningful portion migrate to digital channels as they establish in-market banking relationships. When we provide them with a world-class experience in retail, an attractive value proposition and a broader set of financial service offerings, we build trust and can grow with them on their financial journey in their new home.

雖然許多新移民在零售環境中開始匯款之旅，但隨著時間的推移，隨著他們建立市場銀行業務關係，相當一部分人會遷移到數位管道。當我們為他們提供世界一流的零售體驗、有吸引力的價值主張和更廣泛的金融服務產品時，我們建立了信任，並可以在他們的新家中與他們的金融之旅一起成長。

Last year, we introduced several point-of-sale improvements, including Remember Me, Quick Resend and one step refund to improve our customer and agent experiences.

去年，我們推出了多項銷售點改進，包括記住我、快速重新發送和一步退款，以改善我們的客戶和代理體驗。

I am happy to report that in the first quarter, we processed nearly 2 million transactions using Quick Resend largely still in North America, which is up from roughly the 500,000 transactions we processed when I first shared the launch of this product in the second quarter of 2023. In recent weeks, we have begun to roll out this functionality to Europe and APAC with the goal of building on the success of the improved customer convenience that we now see in North America.

我很高興地向大家報告，第一季度，我們使用Quick Resend 處理了近200 萬筆交易，其中大部分仍在北美，這比我在2019 年第二季度首次分享該產品的推出時處理的大約50 萬筆交易有所增加。

In addition to Quick Resend, we've expanded our One-step Refund functionality, which allows agents to process refunds without the need to engage with our call center associates. This functionality is now available to the vast majority of our network around the world and in the first quarter of 2024, 2/3 of all refunds processed globally were processed using our one-step refund approach. This contributed to a significant reduction in call center volumes and an improved experience for both our agents and our customers alike.

除了快速重新發送之外，我們還擴展了「一步退款」功能，該功能允許客服人員無需與我們的呼叫中心工作人員聯繫即可處理退款。現在，我們在全球的絕大多數網路都可以使用此功能，並且在 2024 年第一季度，全球處理的所有退款中有 2/3 是使用我們的一步式退款方法處理的。這有助於顯著減少呼叫中心的工作量，並改善我們的座席和客戶的體驗。

Lastly, we strive to create a more customer-centric approach through the expanded rollout of our Universal Customer ID. This technology enables one customer profile across our channels for both senders and receivers. It is allowing us to move from a transaction-centric company to a customer-centric company.

最後，我們努力透過擴大通用客戶 ID 的推出來創建更以客戶為中心的方法。這項技術可以為發送者和接收者在我們的管道中提供一份客戶資料。它使我們能夠從一家以交易為中心的公司轉變為以客戶為中心的公司。

With the Universal Customer ID and our improved CRM capabilities, we can now proactively alert customers when their transactions have been delivered. We can make recommendations to receivers on where they can conveniently pick up their transaction or in some markets, even enable receivers to redirect their remittance directly into their account or to a Western Union digital wallet.

借助通用客戶 ID 和我們改進的 CRM 功能，我們現在可以在交易交付時主動提醒客戶。我們可以向收款人推薦在哪裡可以輕鬆提取交易或在某些市場，甚至可以讓收款人將匯款直接轉入他們的帳戶或西聯匯款數位錢包。

A truly customer-centric and channel-agnostic approach is central to our new loyalty program, which I am very pleased to announce we successfully launched in France this week, achieving our goal of an April launch.

真正以客戶為中心且與管道無關的方法是我們新的忠誠度計劃的核心，我很高興地宣布我們本週在法國成功推出了該計劃，實現了四月份推出的目標。

Being able to recognize and reward customers across channels for both senders and receivers is something that we are excited about and believe it will help us improve both the engagement and the retention of our entire customer base.

我們對能夠跨渠道識別和獎勵發送者和接收者的客戶感到興奮，並相信這將幫助我們提高整個客戶群的參與度和保留率。

We are continuously looking for ways to improve our customer and agent experience. We are working hard to expand the rollout of many new additional functionalities, including debit payment at the point of sale, digital receipts and enhanced pay out to account capabilities around the globe. We look forward to updating you on these important initiatives in future quarters.

我們不斷尋找改善客戶和代理商體驗的方法。我們正在努力擴大許多新附加功能的推出，包括銷售點的借記支付、數位收據以及增強的全球帳戶支付功能。我們期待在未來幾季向您通報這些重​​要舉措的最新情況。

In addition to these customer and agent-facing improvements, we are also nearing the end of our core transaction processing engine migration to the cloud. We expect this will be completed this summer, and we look forward to benefiting from a more consumption-based model and the increased scalability that comes with a modern cloud-based architecture. This migration will enable our development teams to innovate more quickly and reliably deliver solutions to our agents and customers globally. Having a fully cloud-enabled core processing platform will enable us to be more agile and competitive in a digital-first world.

除了這些面向客戶和代理商的改進之外，我們的核心交易處理引擎向雲端的遷移也即將結束。我們預計這將在今年夏天完成，我們期待受益於更基於消費的模型以及現代基於雲端的架構帶來的更高的可擴展性。此次遷移將使我們的開發團隊能夠更快地創新，更可靠地為我們的全球代理商和客戶提供解決方案。擁有完全支援雲端的核心處理平台將使我們在數位優先的世界中更加敏捷和更具競爭力。

We believe all regions will benefit from our improved technology-enabled experiences, but one I'd like to highlight today is our European region. Recall that this region has had multiple external forces working against it over the last several years, including our decision to exit our business in Russia and Belarus and the loss of meaningful revenue at 2 large European agents. In addition, Europe is a very competitive part of the world with strong competitors in both the retail and the digital channels.

我們相信所有地區都將受益於我們改進的技術支援體驗，但我今天想強調的是我們的歐洲地區。回想一下，在過去幾年中，該地區受到多種外部力量的反對，包括我們決定退出在俄羅斯和白俄羅斯的業務，以及兩家大型歐洲代理商的重大收入損失。此外，歐洲是世界上競爭非常激烈的地區，在零售和數位通路方面都有強大的競爭對手。

Over the last 18 months, we have been focused on our European operations with the launch of our new digital go-to-market strategy, the expansion of our controlled distribution strategy, the improvement of our value proposition, including dynamic pricing, the launch of our new loyalty program, and the expansion of our product portfolio to include foreign exchange services. These efforts are beginning to pay off.

在過去的 18 個月裡，我們一直專注於我們的歐洲業務，推出了新的數位進入市場策略、擴大了我們的受控分銷策略、改進了我們的價值主張，包括動態定價、推出了我們新的忠誠度計劃，以及我們產品組合的擴展以包括外匯服務。這些努力已開始取得成效。

In the first quarter, our European region grew transactions at a 5% year-over-year growth rate, a marked improvement from the double-digit declines of recent years and the first quarter of 5% plus transaction growth since the fourth quarter of 2019. This improvement was accomplished while absorbing the loss of counter service at one of our largest agents in France, which discontinued their FLA support -- supported remittance offering in the fourth quarter of last year.

第一季度，我們歐洲地區的交易量同比增長 5%，較近年來兩位數的下滑以及自 2019 年第四季度以來第一季度交易量增長 5% 以上的情況明顯改善這一改進是在吸收我們在法國最大的代理商之一櫃檯服務損失的同時實現的，該代理商於去年第四季度停止了FLA 支援——支援匯款服務。

While this agent loss will continue to be a headwind for the coming quarters, the European team did a great job of navigating the situation by extending the contract length by almost 9 months and executing on a remediation plan, which included building up an independent agent network that now totals over 1,500 locations, launching both a digital and kiosk solution for our partner to replace their counter service and expanding the capabilities of our branded digital offering across the country.

雖然經紀人的流失將繼續成為未來幾季的不利因素，但歐洲團隊在應對這種情況方面做得很好，他們將合約期限延長了近9 個月，並執行了補救計劃，其中包括建立獨立的經紀人網路目前共有 1,500 多個地點，為我們的合作夥伴推出數位和自助服務終端解決方案，以取代他們的櫃檯服務，並在全國範圍內擴展我們品牌數位產品的功能。

In the past, we might have chalked up this agent departure to the "market decline of retail in the European region" and left it at that. Instead, we viewed it as an opportunity to do the very type of problem solving required to hold our market position to improve the experience for our customers, to assist and support our agent partner and to mitigate the long-term impact of this action on the underlying health of our business. And because of those decisions, we are now seeing better outcomes than our original projections.

過去，我們可能會將這次代理商的離開歸咎於“歐洲地區零售市場的下滑”，然後就這樣了。相反，我們認為這是一個機會，可以解決保持市場地位所需的問題，從而改善客戶的體驗，協助和支持我們的代理合作夥伴，並減輕這一行動對我們的長期影響。狀況。由於這些決定，我們現在看到的結果比我們最初的預測更好。

I would now like to spend a minute discussing our Consumer Services segment. In previous calls, we have talked about how retail money order and bill payment have been the largest 2 businesses within Consumer Services and the biggest drivers of growth over the last couple of years.

我現在想花一點時間討論我們的消費者服務部門。在先前的電話會議中，我們討論了零售匯票和帳單支付如何成為消費者服務領域最大的兩項業務，以及過去幾年成長的最大推動力。

We have also made it a goal to grow this segment of our business double digits annually for the foreseeable future. While we do expect retail money order and bill payments to continue to grow, we believe the majority of the future incremental growth within Consumer Services will come from products and services we have launched in the last 18 months or are planning to launch in the near future. Services like prepaid debit cards, foreign exchange and the ancillary revenue streams associated with our digital wallets.

我們也設定了一個目標，在可預見的未來，我們這一部分的業務每年以兩位數的速度成長。雖然我們確實預期零售匯票和帳單支付將繼續成長，但我們相信消費者服務領域未來增量成長的大部分將來自我們在過去 18 個月推出或計劃在不久的將來推出的產品和服務。預付借記卡、外匯以及與我們的數位錢包相關的輔助收入流等服務。

Within the last 2 weeks, we have launched our second digital wallet-based experience in Latin America with the launch of our digital wallet in Brazil. This is in addition to the wallet we launched in Argentina under our Pago Facil brand late last year. While both are still early in their evolution, they provide us with a platform to assist our customers with their daily needs, including bill payments, savings, money transfer, both domestic and cross-border as well as access to point-of-sale payment solutions.

在過去兩週內，我們在巴西推出了數位錢包，在拉丁美洲推出了第二個基於數位錢包的體驗。這是我們去年年底在阿根廷以 Pago Facil 品牌推出的錢包的補充。雖然兩者仍處於發展初期，但它們為我們提供了一個平台來協助客戶滿足日常需求，包括國內和跨境帳單支付、儲蓄、匯款以及銷售點支付解決方案。

Brazil is a unique market for us and one we believe will make for an interesting wallet launch. It is a country where we have a large, owned distribution network, where the market is roughly 50-50 split between send and receive, and it is one of the few countries in the world where our digital business is larger than our retail business on a transaction basis.

巴西對我們來說是一個獨特的市場，我們相信這將有助於推出有趣的錢包。在這個國家，我們擁有龐大的自有分銷網絡，市場在發送和接收之間大約有50-50 的份額，而且它是世界上少數幾個我們的數字業務比我們的零售業務更大的國家之一。

We believe that these characteristics give us the ability to work on the retail to digital escalator, provide unique marketing opportunities, and accelerate our ramp based on our learnings from our recent Argentinian launch late last year.

我們相信，這些特徵使我們有能力致力於從零售到數位的自動扶梯，提供獨特的行銷機會，並根據我們去年年底在阿根廷推出的經驗教訓加速我們的發展。

In Argentina, we have successfully on-boarded close to 100,000 wallet-based customers now, and I am pleased to see that 38% of all funds in to the wallet this quarter came from redirects of inbound remittances.

在阿根廷，我們現在已成功吸引了近 10 萬名基於錢包的客戶，我很高興看到本季錢包中所有資金的 38% 來自匯入匯款的重定向。

In the most recent month, 35% of our active monthly users did a bill payment transaction, 28% either put cash in or took cash out at one of our retail locations and our banking partner, Santander, funded 3,000 loans to our customers during the first quarter, a quarter in which we were recognized by Santander with their personal loan award as one of their largest loan originators.

最近一個月，我們35% 的每月活躍用戶進行了帳單支付交易，28% 在我們的零售網點存入現金或提取現金，我們的銀行合作夥伴桑坦德銀行(Santander) 在此期間向我們的客戶提供了3,000 筆貸款。

We believe this type of wallet-based relationship to our customers will make for a more engaged experience, create a 2-sided network, drive affinity to our brand and ultimately help us improve retention while also driving long-term sustainable and profitable revenue growth in our core business.

我們相信，這種與客戶之間基於錢包的關係將帶來更具參與性的體驗，創建雙向網絡，提高對我們品牌的親和力，並最終幫助我們提高保留率，同時推動長期可持續和盈利的營收成長我們的核心業務。

Finally, I'd like to highlight a new strategic partnership. Earlier this month, we began the launch of our strategic relationship with the Swiss Post, one of the most respected brands in Switzerland. This is a new long-term partnership for Western Union, and we are excited to bring Western Union services to over 700 new Swiss Post locations across the country.

最後，我想強調一下新的策略夥伴關係。本月早些時候，我們開始與瑞士郵政（瑞士最受尊敬的品牌之一）建立策略關係。這是西聯匯款新的長期合作關係，我們很高興將西聯匯款服務帶到全國 700 多個新的瑞士郵政網點。

Looking ahead, we remain optimistic about our strategic direction and the progress we are making. We are pleased with the change in the underlying trajectory of our business driven by improved transaction trends across both our digital and retail businesses, while continuing to deliver top line -- improving top line financial results and ongoing strong cash flow.

展望未來，我們對我們的策略方向和正在取得的進展保持樂觀。我們對數位和零售業務交易趨勢改善所推動的業務基本軌蹟的變化感到高興，同時繼續交付營收——改善營收財務業績和持續強勁的現金流。

I remain confident that we have the right strategy, the right capabilities, the right team and the right mindset to achieve our EVOLVE 2025 goals.

我仍然相信，我們擁有正確的策略、正確的能力、正確的團隊和正確的心態來實現我們的 EVOLVE 2025 目標。

Thank you for joining the call today. I will now turn the call over to Matt to discuss our financial results in more detail.

感謝您今天加入通話。我現在將把電話轉給馬特，更詳細地討論我們的財務表現。

Thank you, Devin, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm excited to be here today to walk you through our 2024 first quarter results and our improved financial outlook. I would like to start off by saying how pleased we are with our revenue performance in the first quarter with adjusted revenue up 3% year-over-year to $1.050 billion.

謝謝你，德文，大家下午好。我很高興今天能夠在這裡向您介紹我們的 2024 年第一季業績以及我們改善的財務前景。首先我想說，我們對第一季的營收表現感到非常滿意，調整後的營收年增 3%，達到 10.5 億美元。

Results benefited from ongoing progress of our EVOLVE 2025 strategy as well as revenue from Iraq. Please note that there was a positive calendar impact from leap year in the first quarter.

業績得益於我們 EVOLVE 2025 策略的持續進展以及來自伊拉克的收入。請注意，第一季閏年對日曆產生了正面的影響。

Consumer money transfer transactions grew 6% in the quarter, led by continued momentum in our branded digital business, growth in our digital white label business and continued stabilization of our retail transactions.

在我們的品牌數位業務的持續成長、數位白標業務的成長以及零售交易的持續穩定的帶動下，本季消費者匯款交易成長了 6%。

Adjusted operating margin was 19.7% compared to 20.5% last year, with the decrease primarily related to incremental marketing spend. Adjusted EPS was $0.45 versus $0.43 last year, with the current period benefiting from lower share count, partially offset by higher adjusted tax rate.

調整後營業利益率為 19.7%，而去年為 20.5%，下降主要與行銷支出增量有關。調整後每股收益為 0.45 美元，去年為 0.43 美元，本期受益於股票數量減少，部分被調整後稅率提高所抵銷。

Now turning to our CMT business. Revenue grew 3% on an adjusted basis with transaction growth of 6%. Excluding our domestic money transfer businesses, revenue and transaction growth would have been 1 percentage point higher. As a reminder, our domestic money transfer business globally, it now represents 4% of total CMT revenue.

現在轉向我們的 CMT 業務。調整後營收成長 3%，交易成長 6%。如果不包括我們的國內匯款業務，營收和交易成長將高出 1 個百分點。提醒一下，我們的國內匯款業務目前佔全球 CMT 總收入的 4%。

Moving to our branded digital business. Revenue in the first quarter was up 9% with transaction growth of 13%. We are pleased with the accelerated revenue growth, which is showing positive momentum. As expected, the spread between transaction and revenue growth rates declined to 400 basis points in the first quarter compared to double-digit spread in the prior year period. We expect this to continue to bounce around a little in the coming quarters, but we believe that we can exit 2024 at around 400 basis points.

轉向我們的品牌數位業務。第一季營收成長 9%，交易量成長 13%。我們對收入的加速成長感到高興，呈現出正面的動力。正如預期的那樣，第一季交易成長率和營收成長率之間的差距縮小至 400 個基點，而去年同期的差距為兩位數。我們預計未來幾季這一數字將繼續小幅反彈，但我們相信到 2024 年，我們可以以 400 個基點左右的速度退出。

Now turning to our regional view. We saw quarter-over-quarter revenue improvements in almost all regions. Leading the way were our largest 2 regions, North America and Europe. As you may remember, we launched our new branded digital go-to-market strategy in North America in the third quarter of 2022, and we continue to see momentum in this region with solid transaction growth and sequential revenue acceleration of almost 500 basis points.

現在轉向我們的區域觀點。我們發現幾乎所有地區的收入都實現了季度環比增長。領先的是我們最大的兩個地區：北美和歐洲。您可能還記得，我們​​在 2022 年第三季在北美推出了新的品牌數位化進入市場策略，我們繼續看到該地區的勢頭，交易量穩健增長，收入連續增長近 500 個基點。

We also see send amounts with North America principal per transaction up 1% year-over-year, which is further proof of our customers' ability to navigate the high inflationary environment that they have experienced in recent years.

我們也看到每筆交易的北美本金發送金額年增 1%，這進一步證明了我們的客戶有能力應對近年來經歷的高通膨環境。

I'm highlighting North America, but we are also seeing positive trends in other parts of the world and are excited about the progress we're making globally.

我強調的是北美，但我們也看到了世界其他地區的正面趨勢，並對我們在全球取得的進展感到興奮。

Now moving to our retail business. As Devin mentioned earlier, we have maintained stable transaction trends for the third consecutive quarter as we continue to deploy operational improvements and optimize our network. We are also seeing transaction stability or growth in 3 of our 5 regions and continue to work to enhance our agent and customer experience while improving our value proposition in the marketplace.

現在轉向我們的零售業務。正如德文之前提到的，隨著我們繼續部署營運改善和優化我們的網絡，我們連續第三個季度保持穩定的交易趨勢。我們也看到 5 個地區中的 3 個地區的交易穩定或成長，並繼續努力增強我們的代理商和客戶體驗，同時改善我們在市場上的價值主張。

Europe and CIS led the improvement in retail transaction trends in the first quarter, with transactions growing mid-single digit. We are seeing strength across a number of markets, led by Spain, which was fueled by strong growth in transactions at Western Union's owned and concept stores.

歐洲和獨聯體國家第一季零售交易趨勢有所改善，交易量實現中個位數成長。我們看到以西班牙為首的許多市場表現強勁，這得益於西聯匯款自營店和概念店交易的強勁增長。

Now moving to our Consumer Services segment, which represented 8% of the company's revenue in the quarter. As a reminder, consumer services mostly comprised of bill payment revenue in the United States and Argentina and retail money order in the U.S. Adjusted revenue in the first quarter was up 8%, benefiting from the strength of our retail money order business as well as new services we continue to introduce to our customers. As we ramp up these initiatives, we believe that we can grow consumer services in the double-digit range going forward.

現在轉向我們的消費者服務部門，該部門佔該季度公司收入的 8%。提醒一下，消費者服務主要包括美國和阿根廷的帳單支付收入以及美國的零售匯票收入。向客戶推出服務。隨著我們加強這些措施的力度，我們相信未來消費者服務能夠以兩位數的速度成長。

As Devin mentioned, we expect most of our incremental growth to come from new or expanded products such as our wallet, prepaid card, lending partnerships and foreign exchange.

正如德文所提到的，我們預計大部分的增量成長將來自新或擴展的產品，例如我們的錢包、預付卡、貸款合作夥伴關係和外匯。

Now switching briefly to our cost redeployment program. We continue to make progress on our 5-year $150 million expense redeployment program that we announced during our Investor Day 18 months ago.

現在暫時轉向我們的成本重新部署計劃。我們在 18 個月前的投資者日宣布的 5 年期 1.5 億美元費用重新部署計劃繼續取得進展。

In the first quarter, we incurred $14 million in redeployment costs as we continue to reinvest in efficiencies and manage our cost structure. So far this year, we have taken actions, which we expect to free up over $35 million in 2024. This is in addition to the $50 million we freed up in 2023.

第一季度，我們繼續對效率進行再投資並管理成本結構，因此產生了 1,400 萬美元的重新部署成本。今年到目前為止，我們已經採取了行動，預計到 2024 年將釋放超過 3500 萬美元的資金。

We are now a little over a year into our 5-year commitment and have accomplished more than 50% of our Investor Day goal. After being at Western Union for almost 2 years, I am even more confident that we have meaningful opportunity left to improve both efficiency and effectiveness.

現在我們的 5 年承諾已經過去一年多了，並且已經完成了投資者日目標的 50% 以上。在西聯匯款近兩年後，我更相信我們還有有意義的機會來提高效率和效果。

Now turning to our cash flow and balance sheet. Year-to-date, we have generated $94 million in operating cash flows compared to $137 million in the prior period. The year-over-year change in operating cash flows was largely driven by timing of payments and the change in settlement assets associated with our float portfolio. We expect full year free cash flow to be roughly the same as our net income when you exclude the unusual tax payments that we anticipate this year.

現在轉向我們的現金流和資產負債表。年初至今，我們已產生 9,400 萬美元的營運現金流，而上一期間為 1.37 億美元。經營現金流量的同比變化主要是由付款時間以及與我們的浮動投資組合相關的結算資產的變化所驅動的。當您排除我們今年預計的異常納稅時，我們預計全年自由現金流將與我們的淨利潤大致相同。

Capital expenditures were $35 million in the first quarter and were approximately 40% lower than the first quarter of last year as we have remained vigilant on investing in the right areas and shifting our agents from large upfront signing bonuses to performance-driven commission structures.

第一季的資本支出為3500 萬美元，比去年第一季減少了約40%，因為我們一直保持警惕，投資於正確的領域，並將我們的代理商從大量的預付簽約獎金轉向以績效為導向的佣金結構。

We continue to maintain a strong balance sheet with cash and cash equivalents of $1.1 billion and debt of $2.5 billion. Our leverage ratios remained strong and were at 2.5x and 1.4x on a gross and net basis, which we believe provides us with ample flexibility for potential M&A while maintaining our investment-grade credit rating.

我們繼續保持強勁的資產負債表，現金和現金等價物為 11 億美元，債務為 25 億美元。我們的槓桿率仍然強勁，總額和淨值分別為 2.5 倍和 1.4 倍，我們相信這為我們潛在的併購提供了充足的靈活性，同時維持了我們的投資等級信用評級。

Now moving to our outlook. Today, based on our performance in the first quarter, and our confidence for the remainder of the year, we are raising our 2024 revenue and EPS outlook. This outlook assumes no material changes in macroeconomic conditions.

現在轉向我們的展望。今天，根據我們第一季的業績以及對今年剩餘時間的信心，我們上調了 2024 年收入和每股收益預期。這一前景假設宏觀經濟狀況沒有重大變化。

We now expect adjusted revenue to be in the range of $4.15 billion to $4.225 billion or a $37.5 million increase above the midpoint of our previous outlook.

我們現在預計調整後的營收將在 41.5 億美元至 42.25 億美元之間，比我們先前預期的中點增加 3,750 萬美元。

Adjusted operating margin outlook has remained unchanged and is expected to be in the range of 19% to 21%. And lastly, adjusted EPS is now expected to be in the range of $1.70 to $1.80 or a $0.05 improvement in our previous outlook.

調整後的營業利潤率前景保持不變，預計在 19% 至 21% 之間。最後，調整後每股收益目前預計在 1.70 美元至 1.80 美元之間，比我們之前的預期提高了 0.05 美元。

As a reminder, our 2024 second quarter growth rate will be lower sequentially as we have benefited from leap year in the first quarter of this year and our second quarter last year had a large benefit from Iraq.

提醒一下，我們 2024 年第二季的成長率將環比較低，因為我們今年第一季受益於閏年，而去年第二季我們也從伊拉克受益匪淺。

The situation in Iraq has continued to be fluid, but we have solved some of our operational issues, which we believe will enable us to be around the upper end of our estimate for Iraq of $50 million to $100 million this year.

伊拉克局勢持續不穩定，但我們已經解決了一些業務問題，我們相信這將使我們能夠達到今年為伊拉克提供的 5,000 萬至 1 億美元估計上限。

To recap, we are off to a great start, and we are confident in the trends that we were seeing in the first few months of the year as well as the progress we are making towards our EVOLVE 2025 strategy.

總而言之，我們有了一個良好的開端，我們對今年頭幾個月看到的趨勢以及我們在 EVOLVE 2025 戰略方面取得的進展充滿信心。

Thank you for joining our call today and operator we are ready to take questions.

感謝您今天加入我們的通話，接線生我們已準備好回答問題。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes to us from Tien-Tsin Huang from JPMorgan.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自摩根大通的黃天欽。

Good results here. I think just maybe -- just a simple question on the revenue raise and the outlook. Can you go into a little bit more detail on what the factors are and the contributions from other consumer services with the core money [transfer side]?

這裡有好的結果。我認為也許只是一個關於收入成長和前景的簡單問題。您能否更詳細地介紹一下影響因素以及核心資金（轉帳方）其他消費服務的貢獻？

Tien-Tsin, thanks for joining the call today. We saw a really good performance in Q1 from really 3 different areas. We look at our over delivery in Q1 being split basically around 1/2 to 2/3 being tied to Iraq, relative to what we had initially thought, about 1/3 tied to our brand and digital business coming a little bit stronger than we thought and then a little bit in our consumer services business.

Tien-Tsin，感謝您今天加入電話會議。我們在第一季看到了 3 個不同領域的出色表現。我們看到第一季的超額交付基本上被分割為約 1/2 至 2/3 與伊拉克有關，相對於我們最初的想法，約 1/3 與我們的品牌和數位業務有關，比我們強一點思考一下我們的消費者服務業務。

Got it. So spread across all those 3. And then just -- I think you mentioned you'll see some volatility in the revenue transaction growth spread in the branded digital business. Can you maybe explain what's happening there? Are you doing some -- taking some pricing actions in some places? What's driving the volatility is my question?

知道了。因此，分佈在所有這三個方面。你能解釋一下那裡發生了什麼事嗎？您是否在某些地方採取了一些定價行動？我的問題是，是什麼推動了波動？

As you may remember, we launched our go-to-market strategy at different points throughout the year last year and the year before. Those things sunsets going to make it move around a little bit as well as we're constantly monitoring the market making adjustments as well as we see mix shifts between geographies. We've seen really strong performance in Q1 this year, which has a little bit higher RPT. You could -- as we continue to make advances in our parts of the world, that mix difference can make it bounce around. So multiple things can make a bounce around.

您可能還記得，我們​​在去年和前年的不同時間點推出了上市策略。這些事情的日落將使它稍微移動，我們不斷監控市場進行調整，並且我們看到地理之間的混合變化。我們看到今年第一季的表現非常強勁，RPT 稍高。你可以——隨著我們在世界各地不斷取得進步，這種混合差異可以讓它反彈。因此，多種事物都可以引起反彈。

Our next question comes to us from [Timothy Chiodo] from Credit Suisse.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞士信貸銀行的 [Timothy Chiodo]。

I wanted to see if you could expand a little bit upon some of your expanded relationship that with Visa, you recently put out the press release talking about the Visa Direct capability and the expansion of some new markets there. And while we're at it on the topic of Visa, it's been about a year or so now, there hasn't been a ton of updates. I was wondering if you could give us a status report on Visa Plus and how that rollout is going over the past year or so?

我想看看您是否可以擴展您與 Visa 的一些擴展關係，您最近發布了新聞稿，談論 Visa Direct 功能以及在那裡擴展一些新市場。雖然我們談論 Visa 的話題已經過去了大約一年左右，但還沒有大量的更新。我想知道您能否給我們一份 Visa Plus 的狀態報告以及過去一年左右的推出情況如何？

Thanks for the questions. The last one is the easiest. As you remember and recall Visa Plus is a wallet-to-wallet based rail, given that we have not yet launched our wallet in the U.S., there is no activity to update on Visa Plus.

感謝您的提問。最後一項是最簡單的。正如您所記得並記得的那樣，Visa Plus 是一種基於錢包到錢包的鐵路，鑑於我們尚未在美國推出我們的錢包，因此 Visa Plus 上沒有更新的活動。

With regard to the broader Visa relationship, we are pleased with the progress we are making. We continue to find opportunities using Visa Direct to move money around the world, and we are expanding our issuing capabilities in partnership with Visa, including our new wallet in Brazil as well as the prepaid card in the U.S. that we had launched a couple of quarters ago and our digital wallet and banking experiences in Europe.

關於更廣泛的 Visa 關係，我們對所取得的進展感到高興。我們繼續尋找使用 Visa Direct 在世界各地轉移資金的機會，並且我們正在與 Visa 合作擴大我們的發行能力，包括我們在巴西的新錢包以及我們幾個季度推出的美國預付卡以及我們在歐洲的數位錢包和銀行業務經驗。

Our next question comes to us from Will Nance from Goldman Sachs.

我們的下一個問題來自高盛的威爾·南斯。

I just -- there are a couple of updates on some of the kind of tech initiatives that were made live in one market and live in another market. And I just thought it might be a good time to spend some time on some of the technology initiatives that you have that maybe are less visible to the customer. You've mentioned a couple of things that are -- have been pushed out to every market. I'm just wondering if you could kind of update us on sort of the tech stack initiatives and kind of simplification of your internal infrastructure and what that has done to have the ease of deployment of some of these new products and features across every geography globally. It sounds like you've been able to do that on some of the more recent product launches?

我只是 - 對於一些在一個市場實施並在另一個市場實施的技術舉措有一些更新。我只是認為現在可能是花一些時間在一些對客戶來說不太明顯的技術舉措上的好時機。您提到了一些已經被推向每個市場的東西。我只是想知道您是否可以向我們介紹一下技術堆疊計劃和內部基礎設施的簡化情況，以及為在全球每個地區輕鬆部署其中一些新產品和功能所做的工作。聽起來您已經能夠在最近發布的一些產品中做到這一點？

Will, thanks for the question. I would lump our tech, and I'll call it, tech infrastructure into 3 components. And I think we're making progress on all 3. One is the processing capabilities, which I highlighted here, which is our core processing platform, our core settlement platform. We are nearing the end of a multiyear journey to migrate those platforms into the cloud. And I anticipate before the end of the year, we will have our processing platform there. And we have a few countries left to do on our settlement platform, but we are nearing the end of that journey as well.

威爾，謝謝你的提問。我會將我們的技術（我稱之為技術基礎設施）分為三個部分。我認為我們在所有三個方面都取得了進展。我們將這些平台遷移到雲端的多年旅程即將結束。我預計在今年年底之前，我們將在那裡擁有我們的處理平台。我們的結算平台上還有一些國家需要做，但我們也已接近這趟旅程的終點。

So our core money movement capabilities will be fully cloud-enabled, which enables us to then obviously move quicker around the world, and enables us to leverage those services in a much easier way than when they were mainframe based here in the U.S.

因此，我們的核心資金轉移能力將完全支援雲，這使我們能夠在世界範圍內明顯更快地移動，並使我們能夠以比它們基於美國大型機時更容易的方式利用這些服務。

The second part, which I also highlighted on the call, is the technology investments we're making to create the ability to manage our business from a customer standpoint and not from a transaction standpoint. So given the history of Western Union and the history in our retail business, many of our core processing platforms, our risk decision systems, our customer interaction modules, were all based on transactions. In fact, we used something called the MTCN to delineate a transaction. We are migrating many of those systems and many of the processes to be customer-centric. And I talked about our universal customer ID as the indicator that we will use to manage our infrastructure instead of the transaction code.

我在電話會議上也強調的第二部分是我們正在進行的技術投資，目的是創造從客戶的角度而不是從交易的角度來管理我們業務的能力。因此，考慮到西聯匯款的歷史和我們零售業務的歷史，我們的許多核心處理平台、我們的風險決策系統、我們的客戶互動模組都是基於交易的。事實上，我們使用稱為 MTCN 的東西來描述交易。我們正在遷移其中許多系統和流程，以實現以客戶為中心。我談到了我們的通用客戶 ID 作為我們將用來管理我們的基礎設施而不是交易代碼的指示器。

The third is the infrastructure investments that we put in place underlying our core platforms, both on the retail side and the digital side. We've been modernizing those platforms. We have our next-generation digital platform. I'll probably be directionally correct, but exactly wrong in about 12 or 13 countries.

第三是我們在核心平台基礎上進行的基礎建設投資，包括零售方面和數位方面。我們一直在對這些平台進行現代化改造。我們擁有下一代數位平台。我的方向可能是正確的，但在大約 12 或 13 個國家/地區完全錯誤。

We continue to update our point-of-sale platform with many of the things I highlighted on this call to improve ease of use, speed and obviously, customer and agent experience. We will continue to be doing that for some real period of time. We see ongoing opportunities to update those front-end platforms both to improve customer experience, but also to make them more seamless and easy to deliver around the globe.

我們繼續更新我們的銷售點平台，其中包括我在這次電話會議中強調的許多內容，以提高易用性、速度，顯然還提高了客戶和代理體驗。我們將在一段時間內繼續這樣做。我們看到了不斷更新這些前端平台的機會，不僅可以改善客戶體驗，還可以使其在全球範圍內更加無縫且易於交付。

Got it. That's super helpful. I appreciate all the detail there. And then maybe just a follow-up question on Iraq and just maybe looking for a little bit more detail on -- I just want to -- how much of that impact -- I mean, how much that impacted the quarter in this quarter? And then it sounds like you're talking about sort of the higher end, just how do you -- the previous range that you gave, how are you kind of thinking about that over the course of the year?

知道了。這非常有幫助。我很欣賞那裡的所有細節。然後也許只是一個關於伊拉克的後續問題，也許只是尋找更多細節——我只是想——這種影響有多大——我的意思是，這對本季的影響有多大？然後聽起來你好像在談論某種更高端的東西，你如何——你之前給出的範圍，你在這一年中對此有何看法？

Will, thanks for the question. So this quarter was about a 4% improvement to revenue as a result of Iraq year-over-year. And then as what I talked about in the prepared remarks is we do expect to be around the upper end of our previous guide of $50 million to $100 million for the full year.

威爾，謝謝你的提問。因此，由於伊拉克問題，本季的營收年增了約 4%。正如我在準備好的演講中所說，我們確實預計全年收入將達到先前指南的上限，即 5,000 萬至 1 億美元。

Our next question comes to us from Andrew Schmidt from Citi.

我們的下一個問題來自花旗集團的安德魯·施密特。

It's good to see the progress here. I want to start with digital. Second quarter, we've seen kind of this low teens transaction growth rate, which is good to see. Maybe talk about just the sustainability of that as you start to lap tougher comps, obviously, second quarter does have a little bit of 1 day less in terms of just the lack of leap year benefit. But anything else to call out there from a trend line perspective would be helpful?

很高興看到這裡的進展。我想從數字開始。第二季度，我們看到青少年交易成長率較低，這是一件好事。當你開始進行更嚴格的比賽時，也許可以談談它的可持續性，顯然，由於缺乏閏年福利，第二季確實少了一天。但從趨勢線的角度來看，還有其他的說法會有幫助嗎？

Thanks for the question. When we launched EVOLVE 2025, we had done a lot of work both around the macro market, but also what we thought was Western Union's potential within that market. And we remained firmly of the belief that being able to grow our digital business double digits in transactions ended revenue is an achievable goal as part of our EVOLVE 2025 strategy. We've now had 3 quarters in a row of double digit, 4 quarters in a row of double-digit transaction growth which I think begins to speak to the sustainability given we launched this program back in August, September of 2022. We continue to see opportunities, both in different parts of the world as well as in our own experience to ensure that we can continue to deliver and meet our EVOLVE 2025 goals. So I remain very confident.

謝謝你的提問。當我們推出 EVOLVE 2025 時，我們不僅圍繞著宏觀市場做了很多工作，而且還考慮了西聯匯款在該市場的潛力。我們仍然堅信，作為我們 EVOLVE 2025 策略的一部分，能夠將我們的數位業務交易結束收入實現兩位數成長是一個可以實現的目標。現在，我們已經連續3 個季度實現兩位數的交易成長，連續4 個季度實現兩位數的交易成長，我認為這開始說明我們在2022 年8 月、9 月啟動了該計劃的可持續性。所以我還是很有信心的。

Perfect. Very clear. And then maybe I'll switch gears to the retail side. It sounds like transactions ex-Iraq continue to improve. Perhaps you could put a finer point on that. And then I think that one of the bigger questions we get is when you start to lap these promotions in the second quarter here, can that spread also start to narrow? Or will more promotions be necessary to kind of drive growth there? Maybe you can talk about what you're seeing in the market from a promotional competitive intensity perspective there as well. Both those fronts will be helpful?

完美的。非常清楚。然後也許我會轉向零售方面。聽起來，伊拉克以外的交易繼續改善。也許你可以對此提出更詳細的觀點。然後我認為我們遇到的一個更大的問題是，當你開始在第二季進行這些促銷活動時，這種差距也會開始縮小嗎？或者是否需要更多促銷活動來推動那裡的成長？也許您也可以從促銷競爭強度的角度談論您在市場上看到的情況。這兩個方面都會有幫助嗎？

Andrew, thanks for the question. Similar to Devin's answer on digital, we've now had 3 quarters of flattish growth for our retail business. Iraq is not very mature to the overall transaction count, so it doesn't make a major difference between the 2.

安德魯，謝謝你的提問。與德文對數位化的回答類似，我們的零售業務現在已經連續三個季度持平成長。伊拉克的整體交易數量還不是很成熟，因此兩者之間沒有太大區別。

We feel good about it. We feel like our goal when we talked back in October '22 was to get back to stability having 3 quarters in a row. It's the first time we've had 3 quarters in a row in 5, 7 years, it's been a long time. And we still feel like there's a lot more opportunity we have to work with our partners, the technology Devin talked about during the prepared remarks.

我們對此感覺很好。我們覺得，當我們在 22 年 10 月回話時，我們的目標是連續 3 個季度恢復穩定。這是我們五、七年來第一次連續三個季度，這已經是很長一段時間了。我們仍然覺得我們有更多的機會與我們的合作夥伴合作，德文在準備好的演講中談到了技術。

The only one that's really largely rolled out is a one-step refund. We still have tons of room on our new debit solutions. We're rolling out the Quick Resend, Remember Me. So we feel like there's a lot more runway ahead of us on this. It may bounce around from quarter-to-quarter as we're rolling those things out, but we think there's a lot of opportunity.

唯一真正大規模推出的一項是一步退款。我們的新借記卡解決方案仍有大量空間。我們正在推出“快速重新發送，記住我”。所以我們覺得在這方面我們還有很多路要走。當我們推出這些東西時，它可能會逐季度反彈，但我們認為有很多機會。

Our next question comes to us from Vasu Govil from KBW.

我們的下一個問題來自 KBW 的 Vasu Govil。

I guess the first one I had was on agent renewal activity. Devin, as you guys have sort of done all this work and improved the new -- the functionality that's available on the platform, to what degree has that changed the conversation you're having with agents? And is it resulting in better economic terms or longer-term contracts as you go into these negotiations?

我想我的第一個活動是代理續約活動。 Devin，你們已經完成了所有這些工作並改進了平台上可用的新功能，這在多大程度上改變了你們與客服人員的對話？當您進行這些談判時，是否會帶來更好的經濟條件或長期合約？

That's a great question. Great question, Vasu. Thanks for joining the call today. Part of how we have been able to transition from the large upfront signing bonus is that we historically have been offering to a much more performance-oriented structure is the confidence that the agents have now in the transaction trends that they're seeing in their own agent offices.

這是一個很好的問題。好問題，瓦蘇。感謝您今天加入通話。我們之所以能夠從巨額預付簽約獎金過渡到過去一直提供的更注重績效的結構，部分原因在於代理商現在對他們在自己的交易趨勢中看到的信心代理辦事處。

So as they see us improve performance, they realize they, in fact, can make more money than potentially under the more fixed type structures that existed before. So our improved transaction performance is translating into our ability to change the terms and nature of the conversation with some of our largest and most important agents.

因此，當他們看到我們提高績效時，他們意識到，事實上，他們可以比以前存在的更固定類型的結構下賺到更多的錢。因此，我們改進的交易績效正在轉化為我們改變與一些最大和最重要的代理商的對話條款和性質的能力。

We continue to believe we are a partner-driven business. Our agents are exceptionally important to us.

我們仍然相信我們是一家由合作夥伴驅動的企業。我們的代理商對我們來說非常重要。

The other thing that I think has changed for them is our recommitment to the retail business in general. Our willingness to invest in our point of sale, our willingness. We rolled out our loyalty program with the explicit recognition of agents participating in it and rewarding them for that, but also making it truly this time, a retail and digital loyalty program, not largely just a digital loyalty program.

我認為對他們來說發生的另一件事是我們對整個零售業務的重新承諾。我們願意投資我們的銷售點，我們的意願。我們推出了忠誠度計劃，明確認可參與該計劃的代理商並為此給予獎勵，但這次也使其成為真正的零售和數位忠誠度計劃，而不僅僅是數位忠誠度計劃。

So agents see those kinds of actions and behaviors, and we've gotten very good response from the majority around the world.

因此，特工們看到了這些類型的行動和行為，我們已經從世界各地的大多數人那裡得到了很好的回應。

And a quick one for you, Matt. I was -- I wanted to ask about the margin cadence for the year. I know that moves around a ton and you guys are keeping some flexibility for investments, but if you could help us think through any meaningful differences that we should be modeling quarter-to-quarter?

馬特，給你一個快速的。我想問今年的保證金節奏。我知道變化很大，你們在投資方面保持了一定的靈活性，但如果你們能幫助我們思考我們應該按季度建模的任何有意義的差異？

Yes. So Vasu, it's similar to past 2 years, it will bounce around as we have investment opportunities. It's hard to give you any given quarter, but we are committed to the 19% to 21% margin for the full year. This quarter came in solid at 19.6%. It's hard to give you any one particular item on that.

是的。所以 Vasu，與過去兩年類似，隨著我們有投資機會，它會反彈。很難給你具體的季度數據，但我們承諾全年利潤率為 19% 到 21%。本季的成長率穩定在 19.6%。很難給你任何一項具體的內容。

Our next question comes to us from Ken Suchoski from Autonomous.

我們的下一個問題來自 Autonomous 的 Ken Suchoski。

Can you just unpack the drivers behind that spread narrowing in the digital branded business? I'm curious what you guys are seeing when you look at the data, whether it's by geography or cohort or any other factors that you evaluate?

您能否解釋一下數位品牌業務價差縮小背後的驅動因素？我很好奇你們在查看數據時看到了什麼，無論是按地理位置、群組還是您評估的任何其他因素？

Ken, thanks for joining the call. I think we have been messaging for a couple of quarters now that the spread would close, and it would close based on how we rolled out the program. And so as we continue to lap the rollout of the program, and we talked about historically how we did that by region, U.S. first, then Europe, then kind of rest of the world, finishing with Australia sometime in the mid- to late summer of 2023. Then as we lapped those rollouts, you would see the spread start to close. That accelerated a bit more than we probably anticipated in the first quarter, and that's driven by improving transaction trends and a bit of retention for those cohorts of customers that have come under this program, which has accelerated the closure of that revenue, which I think are positive.

肯，感謝您加入通話。我認為我們幾個季度以來一直在傳達訊息，價差將會結束，並且它會根據我們推出該計劃的方式而結束。因此，當我們繼續推進該計劃時，我們歷史性地討論了我們如何按地區進行這項工作，首先是美國，然後是歐洲，然後是世界其他地區，最後是在夏季中後期的澳大利亞2023 年。然後，當我們完成這些部署時，您會看到價差開始縮小。這一速度比我們在第一季的預期要快一些，這是由於交易趨勢的改善以及參與該計劃的客戶群的一些保留所推動的，這加速了該收入的結束，我認為是積極的。

Okay. Great. And then I guess just a question on the physical retail spread. When we try to do some macro math assuming, call it, $40 million, $45 million of Iraq revenue contribution, a similar kind of principal per transaction for that business. It looks like the physical retail revenue per transaction ex-Iraq jumped up quite a bit quarter-over-quarter. And so I'm just wondering if that's what you're seeing and also what's driving that quarter-over-quarter increase?

好的。偉大的。然後我想這只是關於實體零售價差的問題。當我們嘗試做一些宏觀數學假設時，稱其為伊拉克收入貢獻 4000 萬美元、4500 萬美元，該業務的每筆交易的本金類似。看起來，除伊拉克外的每筆交易的實體零售收入較上季成長了不少。所以我只是想知道這是否是您所看到的以及是什麼推動了季度環比增長？

Yes. So Ken, thanks for joining the call. We're not having a major change in our retail RPTs. I think you're using probably too low of an RPT for Iraq. We've talked previously on calls that our yield and RPT for Iraq is higher than the average business. The principal amounts are larger, they're more C2B type transactions. So you have to anticipate more than the average for the company, call it, almost more double our RPT for Iraq, and you'll get to -- hopefully, that will get you to a number. It's not a major change for our retail business.

是的。肯，感謝您加入通話。我們的零售 RPT 沒有發生重大變化。我認為您對伊拉克使用的 RPT 可能太低。我們之前在電話會議上談到，我們在伊拉克的產量和 RPT 高於平均水準。本金金額較大，較多是C2B類型的交易。因此，你必須對公司的平均水平進行預期，稱之為，幾乎是我們在伊拉克的 RPT 的兩倍，你會得到——希望這會讓你得到一個數字。對於我們的零售業務來說，這並不是一個重大變化。

I think the other thing, Ken, you might be seeing is there are some mix shifts in the business, which we highlighted, particularly on the retail side. The strength in Europe has been good with nearly mid-single-digit transaction growth. In general, RPTs are higher in Europe than they are in some other parts of the world. And so you're seeing some mix shift in some of those calculations probably as well. But we're really pleased that, that gap has closed by 300 basis points as well.

肯，我認為您可能會看到的另一件事是我們強調的業務中存在一些混合變化，特別是在零售方面。歐洲的實力一直很好，交易成長接近中個位數。一般來說，歐洲的 RPT 高於世界其他一些地區。因此，您可能也會在其中一些計算中看到一些混合變化。但我們非常高興的是，這差距也縮小了 300 個基點。

Our next question comes to us from Jason Kupferberg from Bank of America.

我們的下一個問題來自美國銀行的 Jason Kupferberg。

Just a follow-up on Iraq, just to make sure I got the math right. I think you said it contributed 4 points of growth in the quarter. So I guess that's about $40 million, and I think you said you're tracking to, call it, the $100 million level for the year. So how should we think about kind of a base case for the quarterly cadence from here? And then just how much of the full year revenue guidance raise is coming from Iraq? Would it be kind of 1/2 to 2/3, I think that was your answer to Tien-Tsin's question in terms of the source of upside in the quarter, but I just wanted to check that for the year?

只是伊拉克問題的後續行動，只是為了確保我的數學計算正確。我想你說過它為本季貢獻了4個百分點的成長。所以我猜這大約是 4000 萬美元，我想你說過你正在追踪，稱之為，今年的 1 億美元水平。那我們該如何考慮季度節奏的基本情況呢？那麼全年收入指導成長中有多少來自伊拉克？會是1/2到2/3嗎？

Jason, thanks for joining the call today. To your first question, your math is a little bit different on the estimating what Q1 was. It's 4% -- contributing 4% growth. There was an amount last year as well as we disclosed, it was around $25 million last year. So the numbers some were a little bit more than the low end of our range we've given for the full year. .

傑森，感謝您今天加入電話會議。對於你的第一個問題，你的數學在估計 Q1 時有點不同。這是 4%——貢獻了 4% 的成長。去年有一筆金額，我們披露過，去年約 2500 萬美元。因此，有些數字略高於我們給出的全年範圍的低端。 。

I also in my prepared remarks, said that some of our -- we solved some of the operational issues for Iraq, which is why we're flagging it will be around the upper end of the range now because there are some things we've not solved. To best way to think about what Iraq could be going forward, I'm going to give you a very wide range because it's still a fluid market, but think about somewhere in that $10 million to $30 million range per quarter for the rest of the year.

我還在準備好的發言中表示，我們解決了伊拉克的一些行動問題，這就是為什麼我們標記它現在將處於範圍的上限附近，因為我們已經解決了一些問題沒有解決。為了最好地思考伊拉克未來可能發生的事情，我將給你一個非常廣泛的範圍，因為它仍然是一個流動的市場，但想想在剩下的時間裡每季1000 萬美元到3000 萬美元的範圍。

Okay. That's helpful. And then ...

好的。這很有幫助。進而 ...

And just coming back to the raise, though. I think the raise is driven by the confidence in the underlying trends in revenue. As Matt said, Iraq remains volatile. There's still issues to be resolved, but we see strength in our underlying core business, which gives us confidence in that raise without having to rely on some outsized performance from Iraq.

不過，剛剛回到加薪的問題。我認為這次加薪是由於對收入基本趨勢的信心所致。正如馬特所說，伊拉克仍然動盪不安。仍有問題需要解決，但我們看到了我們基礎核心業務的實力，這讓我們對加薪充滿信心，而不必依賴伊拉克的一些超常表現。

Understood. And then just in terms of the digital revenue growth trend, obviously, nice improvement there to 9% in the quarter. How do you see that trending during the balance of the year? I know the year-over-year comps start to flip around and get tougher. But do you think we exit the year double-digit plus? Or I wanted to get a sense of that?

明白了。就數位收入成長趨勢而言，很明顯，本季成長了 9%。您如何看待今年餘下時間的趨勢？我知道逐年比較開始改變並且變得更加艱難。但你認為我們今年會以兩位數以上的成績結束嗎？還是我想了解一下？

Yes. So we still are believing that we can get to be a double-digit grower Q1, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we had an extra day for leap year. So I think that we will continue to bounce around the high single-digit to low double-digit range is our optimism. But a lot more work to do.

是的。因此，我們仍然相信我們可以在第一季成為兩位數的種植者，正如我在準備好的發言中提到的那樣，我們為閏年多了一天。因此，我認為我們樂觀地認為，我們將繼續在高個位數到低兩位數範圍內反彈。但還有很多工作要做。

Our next question comes to us from Bryan Keane from Deutsche Bank.

我們的下一個問題來自德意志銀行的布萊恩·基恩。

Just hoping you could flesh out the new loyalty program and its potential improve or -- seeing improvement in the retail business and how that could have a factor going forward to sustainable growth in retail?

只是希望您能夠充實新的忠誠度計劃及其潛在的改進，或者看到零售業務的改善以及這如何成為推動零售業可持續增長的因素？

Thank you for the question. We're excited about the new loyalty program. As you know from our EVOLVE 2025 strategy outlined, improving retention across our business is one of the key drivers of long-term sustainable growth, particularly in retail. And so we are focused on recognizing our customers at every point of interaction and then for our best customers, rewarding them for their loyalty over time.

謝謝你的提問。我們對新的忠誠度計劃感到興奮。正如您從我們的 EVOLVE 2025 策略中了解到的那樣，提高整個業務的保留率是長期可持續成長的關鍵驅動力之一，尤其是在零售業。因此，我們專注於在每個互動點中識別我們的客戶，然後尋找我們最好的客戶，獎勵他們隨著時間的推移的忠誠度。

Our prior loyalty program was not terribly effective in the retail environment. It was exceptionally hard both for agents to administer and for customers to redeem. It required a code and a special sequence of actions in order to do that.

我們先前的忠誠度計劃在零售環境中並不是非常有效。對於代理商的管理和客戶的兌換來說都異常困難。它需要一個代碼和一個特殊的操作序列才能做到這一點。

We've actually changed the program. It's now customer based regardless of channel. It will allow a customer to earn a reward after 5 transactions and to seamlessly redeem that reward on any transaction, whether that is online or at a retail location. And we're providing incentives over time to our agents to participate and help us grow that program and obviously, loyalty with our retail customers.

我們實際上已經改變了程序。現在無論管道如何，它都是以客戶為基礎的。它將允許客戶在 5 次交易後獲得獎勵，並在任何交易中無縫兌換該獎勵，無論是在線上還是在零售店。隨著時間的推移，我們會向我們的代理商提供激勵措施，讓他們參與並幫助我們發展該計劃，顯然，也提高了我們零售客戶的忠誠度。

Got it. And just a follow-up question I had, thinking about the spread, but I want to think about the spread ex-Iraq. So maybe you could just give us the numbers ex-Iraq on the spread. And did that close at all from last quarter? It seemed like it was pretty similar gap there between revenue and transactions?

知道了。我有一個後續問題，考慮蔓延，但我想考慮伊拉克以外的蔓延。所以也許你可以提供我們來自伊拉克的價差數據。上季結束了嗎？收入和交易之間的差距似乎非常相似？

The digital business closing spread that Devin talked about has no Iraq in it. Iraq's all with -- is in the nondigital business. So yes, it closed without it.

德文談到的數位業務關閉蔓延中沒有伊拉克。伊拉克的全部精力都集中在非數位業務上。所以是的，沒有它它就關閉了。

Our next question comes to us from Ramsey El-Assal from Barclays.

我們的下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的拉姆齊·阿薩爾。

Ramsey, are you there?

拉姆齊，你在嗎？

We'll go to the next question from James Faucette from Morgan Stanley.

我們將討論摩根士丹利的 James Faucette 提出的下一個問題。

I wanted to ask just a couple of quick follow-up questions. First, and I'll just put them both out there simultaneously. First, on Iraq, message is clear for this year. How and when will we have visibility into how much of kind of that quarterly cadence could carry into next year? And what are the key factors in determining that? And then obviously, your expected growth for multiple years in consumer services is quite compelling, but I'm wondering how we should think about the evolution of profitability? And how closely that may track consumer services and the profitability of those services?

我只想問幾個快速的後續問題。首先，我將把它們同時放在那裡。首先，關於伊拉克，今年的訊息是明確的。我們如何以及何時才能了解明年的季度節奏會持續到什麼程度？決定這一點的關鍵因素是什麼？顯然，您對消費者服務領域多年的預期成長非常引人注目，但我想知道我們應該如何考慮獲利能力的演變？這對消費者服務和這些服務的獲利能力的追蹤程度如何？

James, thanks for joining the call today. I'll tackle the first question on that on the Iraq side. We think -- it's a fluid market. So it's hard for me to tell you what's going to happen in Q1 of 2025, but we have now made some meaningful progress to stabilize some of the operational issues. It's come down to a more repeatable amount over the last couple of months. So we feel optimistic this thing could last a while. That's why we've rolled it into our guide and didn't overly emphasize in our prepared remarks today. So we do view it as hopefully a sustainable part of our business in that range of $10 million to $30 million a quarter.

詹姆斯，感謝您今天參加電話會議。我將從伊拉克方面回答第一個問題。我們認為──這是一個流動的市場。因此，我很難告訴您 2025 年第一季會發生什麼，但我們現在已經取得了一些有意義的進展，以穩定一些營運問題。在過去的幾個月裡，它已歸結為更具可重複性的數量。因此，我們對這件事可能會持續一段時間感到樂觀。這就是為什麼我們將其納入我們的指南中，並且在今天準備好的演講中沒有過度強調。因此，我們確實將其視為我們每季 1000 萬至 3000 萬美元業務的可持續部分。

On the second question with regard to consumer services as you saw in the prepared remarks and on the slides, there's a wide range of products and services that we are working to deliver with varying margin profiles. We remain committed to grow consumer services at margins that are consistent with the overall company, if not better. So we do not expect consumer services to be large and dilutive over time, and we are hoping, particularly for some of the higher-value products and services like debit interchange and the prepaid cards as well as some of our investments that are coming to fruition around foreign exchange could yield better margins than our core transactional business in some cases.

關於消費者服務的第二個問題，正如您在準備好的評論和幻燈片中看到的那樣，我們正在努力提供各種不同利潤率的產品和服務。我們仍然致力於以與公司整體一致（甚至更好）的利潤率來發展消費者服務。因此，我們預計消費者服務不會隨著時間的推移而規模龐大並被稀釋，我們希望，特別是對於一些更高價值的產品和服務，例如借記卡交換和預付卡，以及我們即將取得成果的一些投資在某些情況下，圍繞外匯業務可能會比我們的核心交易業務產生更好的利潤。

There are no additional questions in the queue at this time. Thank you for joining the Western Union First Quarter 2024 Conference Call. We hope you have a great day.

目前隊列中沒有其他問題。感謝您參加西聯匯款 2024 年第一季電話會議。我們希望您度過愉快的一天。