WESTERN UNION TO SET UP A GLOBAL OPERATIONS CENTER OF EXCELLENCE IN LITHUANIA
Western Union, an industry leader in global money transfer, will set up its new Global Operations Center of Excellence in Lithuania. The Lithuanian Ministry of Economy signed a Letter of Intent with the company. Western Union will open its Center later this year and will create over 200 new jobs in Vilnius during the coming three years.
“It is a great pleasure to us that a worldwide innovator in financial services such as Western Union has chosen to come to Lithuania. This investment in the service sector is one more opportunity to show to the world the talent that exists in Lithuania and our high value-added services,” said the Minister of Economy Dainius Kreivys.According to David Larkworthy, Western Union’s Senior Vice President & Head of Operating Strategy, Lithuania (Vilnius) was selected as an attractive location because of its strong talent pool of highly-skilled, well educated and multilingual professionals, its stable political and improving economic climate and world-class infrastructure as well as the Government’s policy in attracting foreign direct investments.
The Global Operation Center in Lithuania will handle back-office processing functions and complement other global operations centers of Western Union. “Invest Lithuania” has been assisting Western Union during the entire selection process. “We have been working with this project for one year already, so we are very glad to hear that Western Union has evaluated Lithuania as a good business opportunity and the best place for its world-class operations centre“, said Mantas Nocius, Managing Director of “Invest Lithuania”.
Western Union operates through a network of more than 420,000 agent locations in 200 countries and territories. The center in Vilnius will be its fourth Global Operations Center in the world. In 2009, the turnover of Western Union was 5.1 billion U.S. dollars, and it has over 6,000 employees.
Figures recently published in the FDImarkets.com investment monitor database show that 28 foreign companies invested over EUR 1 billion and created 5,300 new jobs in Lithuania in 2009. Barclays Group of the UK set up its global IT centre in Vilnius, and the US corporation Moog launched the development of its new medical devices production facility, regional service centre and R&D centre in Lithuania. Sweden's ventilation group Systemair plans to establish a new ventilation equipment factory in Ukmerge, and the Spanish Gruppo Sopena plans to launch an aluminum components plant in Alytus Industrial Park. One of the world leaders in new technologies IBM and the Lithuanian Government recently signed a letter of intent that they would create a joint research centre in Lithuania.
