Earnings Labs

The Western Union Company (WU)

Q1 2020 Earnings Call· Tue, May 5, 2020

$9.02

-3.79%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Western Union Company First Quarter 2020 Earnings Release Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brendan Metrano, Vice President Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Brendan Metrano

Analyst

Thank you. On today's call, we will discuss the company's results, for the first quarter of 2020, 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. Western Union is still following a work from home policy. So on a remote call today is our CEO, Hikmet Ersek, our CFO, Raj Agrawal, and head of Treasury and Investor Relations, Brad Windbigler. Today’s call is being recorded and our comments include forward-looking statements. Please refer to the cautionary language in the earnings release and in Western Union’s filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission, including the 2018 Form 10-K, for additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. 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 on our website, westernunion.com, under the Investor Relations section. We will also discuss certain adjusted metrics. Although expenses that have been excluded from adjusted metrics are specific to those initiatives, the types of expenses may be similar to types of expenses that the company has previously incurred and can reasonably be expected to incur in the future. All statements made by Western Union officers on this call are the property of The Western Union Company and are subject to copyright protection. Other than the replay noted in our press release, Western Union has not authorized and disclaims responsibility for any recording, replay or distribution of any transcription of this call. I will now turn the call over to our CEO Hikmet Ersek.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Well, thank you, Brendan and good afternoon everyone. We hope you and your families are safe and well. Our thoughts are with all of those who have been affected by COVID-19. Western Union has been determined to do its part by living up to our responsibilities as one of the most trusted global brands delivering essential services to millions of customers worldwide during this unprecedented and challenging time. We are grateful to all of the frontline dealers and essential workers as well as our employees and partners who are working tirelessly to combat this global health and economic crisis. During our call today, our CFO Raj Agrawal, and I will share how Western Union is navigating the current environment and discuss our first quarter results. We will also share our views on the market environment impacted by COVID-19 and provide our perspective on economic and customer trends. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought social and business life to a grinding halt. Stock markets have been in [indiscernible] global GDP growth projection has plumed to near historic lows, and unemployment rates in many countries have surged. The effects of this pandemic are likely triggering one of the greatest economic shocks of the past century. Our industry is no exception and we are experiencing the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides migration flows, economic indicators like GDP growth, and employment levels are indicative of consumer behavior and business activity. However, I'm glad to say that the strategic decisions and investments we made especially during the past years, have laid the foundation for us to navigate to this unprecedented crisis from a position of strength. We have one of the most trusted global consumer brands. Our strong corporate balance sheet and healthy financial position are supported by a very strong annual operating cash flow…

Raj Agrawal

Analyst

Thank you, Hikmet and good afternoon everyone. Today I will start off with a review of our first quarter results and then offer some insights into our plans for managing through the COVID-19 crisis. To improve comparability with prior year results and to better reflect ongoing operations, our adjusted results exclude the impacts of the Speedpay and Paymap divestitures from revenue and costs associated with restructuring initiatives and mergers and acquisitions. Before we get into our first quarter results, I would like to provide some context around the impact of COVID-19 during the quarter. Through mid-March COVID-19's impact on our business was primarily limited to China, and to some extent, Italy. Overall, our business was performing in line with the expectations underlying our original 2020 financial outlook. In the latter part of March, as the spread of COVID-19 accelerated and stay at home orders were implemented we began to experience significant declines in consumer to consumer transactions. In the final days of March rates of decline were around 30%. Given the extent and uncertain duration of this disruption, it became clear that we could not reasonably project the impact of COVID-19 on our 2020 financial results. So on March 27th, we withdrew our 2020 financial outlook. In span trends for the month of April improved from March, with C2C transactions declining 21%. I will provide some thoughts on how COVID-19 may affect our business during 2020 in a few minutes. Moving on to our first quarter results, first quarter revenue of $1.2 billion declined 11% compared to the prior year period, primarily due to the divestitures while adjusted constant currency revenue which excludes our domestic businesses in the prior year period declined 1%. Currency translation net of these impacts from hedges reduced first quarter revenue by approximately $47 million compared…

Operator

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Tien-Tsin Huang of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Tien-Tsin Huang

Analyst

Thank you very much. Hi, hope you guys are well and safe and sound. I think how you laid out the outcomes on revenues make sense and the withdraw of guidance makes sense. But Raj, on the expense side, did I hear correctly, it sounds like we should assume that your expenses from here are the fixed side of it should be relatively flat. And then we should assume that $50 million in savings coming through. Is that sort of the base case? Is there an opportunity to maybe bring forward some of the extra $100 million into this year if need be?

Raj Agrawal

Analyst

Yes, I think the way to think about it, Tien Tsin is that we're still targeting the $150 million of run rate savings in three years from the programs we launched last year. But we, we probably do have some additional opportunity this year with fixed costs saving. And it will largely depend on how revenue plays out too. So we've already stopped hiring any significant new roles. We've already -- and also travel is limited obviously in this environment. We're also reprioritizing some of the key investments we want to make. So there's certainly more opportunity for cost savings beyond the $50 million on a short term basis, I would say Tien Tsin.

Tien-Tsin Huang

Analyst

Okay. Got it. And then just my quick follow-up on the thinking about second order effects of the pandemic and the digital versus traditional mix shift. The assumption is what we're seeing the traditional customers converting to digital faster or the new digital customer is still primarily new to Western Union, just trying to understand that interplay? And then also maybe just an update on your profit margins on the digital side versus traditional? Thank you.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Yes, let me take the first part saying that the most of the customer on YouTube is digital. As we have two digitals; one is with digital partners, one is with westernunion.com. And that's especially westernunion.com we see new customers, continue to be new customers. But we do also see some conversions. As people are locked down they are subject to lockdown orders to regulators in many countries. They just can't go out to the street to the street and make transactions many people do choose westernunion.com. They're very loyal to our brand. And they do use westernunion.com. But many, many customers are joining us as a new customers, especially on the digital side the general partner side, sorry, all are new, right. And as we know, as we rolled out with digital partners, new customer segments they are new to our network. Raj, do you want to talk about the profitability there?

Raj Agrawal

Analyst

Yes. I think Tien Tsin just this environment really reinforces why our digital strategy is so good and why it's going to continue to be very beneficial to us. Our digital business overall is very profitable, both the branded and non-branded offerings. We look largely as incremental business, incremental customers. If you break it down a little bit, westernunion.com has a relatively high RPT or revenue per transaction. It's a little bit lower than retail, but relatively close. And then the gross margins on that business on a percentage basis are not too dissimilar from retail. So, it's a very profitable business. And then on the partnership side, we are more of a processor transactions, as we've talked before. And we don't have a lot of costs in that process. So we have a lower starting point in terms of revenue per transaction. But the margins are very high in the white label side. And it's still early stages. And we don't have a lot of those partnerships yet. And so we are still learning, but it certainly has driven a lot of good growth in the overall business.

Tien-Tsin Huang

Analyst

And I would think the real time account payout network building out quickly has got to help a little bit. So, okay, thank you.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Yes, it is obvious, Tien Tsin.

Raj Agrawal

Analyst

Thank you.

Tien-Tsin Huang

Analyst

Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

Thanks. The next question comes from Jason Kupferberg of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Hi, Jason.

Jason Kupferberg

Analyst

Hey, good afternoon. I just wanted to start with a question picking up on some of the comments about April, I think you said down 21% for the month in terms of the C2C transactions versus the 30% exiting March, obviously some improvement there. Can you just talk about how you exited April, whether that's the last, few days week and whatever you think the right way to talk about it is because it sounded like you had a couple of outbound corridors that got back to pre-COVID level. So I just wanted to see where we actually have been in April.

Raj Agrawal

Analyst

Yes. Jason, we entered April about the same rate of decline, so about minus 30 or so and it did improve sequentially throughout the month. So we exited the month better. I would just say we are really focused on the total month performance at minus 21. But certainly, we saw some positive signs as we move through the course of the month. And certain markets began to open up later in the month like Germany and Switzerland, Netherlands and that did have a positive impact. And for that reason, we think that second quarter is likely to be the lowest quarter for us from a revenue and profit margin standpoint. And it should improve based on what's the forecast that exists externally after we get to the second quarter. So, it was positive for the month of April. So, relatively speaking.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

I think if you look at the digital growth in April was impressive right side. Obviously, as I mentioned earlier our digital pledges are working. We were coming up with a higher 20% now in April is even 32% growth on transactions on digital, overall April within that environment. And don't forget, we are one of the largest in digital. We have about $600 million revenue last year, right in 2019. We had 600 growing on that basis is really we are now in 75 countries with our telecom business and then we have many, many digital partners like white label digital partners, globally. So I am proud what we have done, the team has done, the thing in the right time to think the digital, especially during this crisis, it's really great to see.

Jason Kupferberg

Analyst

Just to pick up on that, I mean, do you have a view at this point, how much of the uptake of digital will end up manifesting itself in terms of permanent consumer behavior change and a lot of talk about that more broadly in other parts of the payments industry and curious how you're thinking about it within the remittance market even once we're on the other side of the virus?

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Yeah, I think, as you know, we have a wonderful network of digital and retails, obviously, globally, we have about 550,000 locations and about 4 billion accounts. The current customers are new Jason, most of them are new to our network and they are sticking. We know that they are loyal and we do have loyalty programs to keep them in our network and they stay within the network. I think that once you start with the -- especially during the crisis with the trusted environment, I think you stay. And we do have worldwide about 150 million customers as I outlined in the last meeting at our Investor Day meeting, we are going more on ecosystem around the consumer ecosystem. We are building that, keeping the loyalty, adding additional products and making them more loyal to our brands. So the good news is that the digital customer segment and new customer segment as you know you need to find on credit card or bank account, on the retail continue to be found that the funds has to be collected by a cash. And so it's the balance on that and I'm not -- we probably have the best service on that to serve in both kinds of customer segments.

Jason Kupferberg

Analyst

Just last quick one for me for Raj. I mean I know your adjusted operating margins were up 120 basis points here in the first quarter, you're going to obviously fill a good amount of revenue pressure in the second quarter. But on a full year basis, do you feel like your adjusted operating margins can increase year-over-year?

Raj Agrawal

Analyst

Yeah, I don't really have a outlook to give you for that, Jason. A lot of it is going to depend on the level of revenue trajectory that we get. So if we had a better feel to the exact revenue outcome, to be able to give you that. I do think we're going to drive strong operating margins. We're doing a lot of things, obviously to drive the original savings programs that we launched last year. And those are going very well for us. And then we're also looking at incremental cost savings this year. So we can mitigate the impact of some revenue decline, obviously not all of it. And I do expect second quarter is going to be the lowest from a revenue and profit standpoint. But hopefully will improve from there. You can look at the first quarter, it's not necessarily indicative of the entire year, but we were down in revenue, but we actually were able to increase our margins year-over-year and that's positive. So we're going to do everything we can to maximize the profits. Without impacting the long-term investments we're going to continue to make. We'll balance both those things as well as we can.

Jason Kupferberg

Analyst

Okay. Thanks for the comments.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. Next question comes from Darrin Peller of Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Darrin Peller

Analyst

Hi, guys. Can you hear me okay?

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Yes.

Darrin Peller

Analyst

All right. Great, glad everyone's doing okay. When we look through 2020 into '21, the competitive dynamics in the landscape is probably going to shift a lot. And so you hopefully will be doing a lot more digital, and that's good for growth. We'll see how it plays out on revenues and margins. But positions you yell, I think there's also potentially, maybe more competition on digital than retail, but there may be some very large retail competitors, who may not exist or could be challenged to this given liquidity positions that they have versus you guys. Can you touch on your positioning to maybe take share through this from a competitive standpoint versus especially in the retail side?

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Sure, let me take that. As you know, we are both in home offices. So we coordinate that answer side. Hi, Darrin, how are you?

Darrin Peller

Analyst

Good.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Look Darrin. And I think that, first of all on the digital success that's going to continue to happen, I believe, especially the combination of our digital network globally, and the efforts we put behind that and our payout network. And also in real time payout, that's huge. And we believe we are gaining market share here. I think even though we have huge page here we are gaining market share compared to the competitors. I think some of the competition on the retail money transfer, we are always looking at the environment. As you know our capital allocation has not changed. We’re going to continue to invest in our business. We also look at for if there any synergies or bigger acquisition opportunity, we will definitely look if it fits in our strategy and if it has a good return. The environment is definitely something we continue to look at that. But most important thing also that we’re going to return cash back to our shareholders via dividend. So this continued to happen. And if there is an opportunity that fits within our strategy the digital side or any retail side we will look at it definitely.

Raj Agrawal

Analyst

And Darrin the other thing on the digital side is that the things that other competitors don’t have as much as we do is a great retail networks which when you combined that with our digital capabilities, that really is a unique offering and even in this environment the retail payout capability is highly sort after. But then we’re also extending into the other digital account payouts. So it's different from the rest of the competition.

Darrin Peller

Analyst

Okay, thanks. Raj, just the follow-up is now for you on the liquidity position and the dividend. And again it's great to see your liquidity position and commitment there now. I guess if April trends, which were down around 20% continue, if the world doesn't get that much easier given unemployment levels and we look through and unemployment stays high and has an impact along with maybe migration. I just want to understand from your perspective where we can get to so that you can still pay the dividend without having to worry about credit ratings having to be tweaked or anything along those lines. How confident are you in what kind of environments?

Raj Agrawal

Analyst

I think, there are a lot of ifs in what you asked and it's hard to predict exactly how things are going to play out. But we don't believe that the dividend is at risk. We feel very good about where we are. And we had a strong position coming in. We continue to generate strong cash flows. And I think we would have to be in a very different world that we're in today for us to think that way. And I think the dividend is very important to the board of Western Union and the dividend payout and we understand that it's very important to shareholders as well. So that's something that we're very committed to.

Darrin Peller

Analyst

Okay. That's great guys. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from James Faucette of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

James Faucette

Analyst

Great. Thank you very much. First question I wanted to ask was, you've given some pretty good color in terms of where you've seen improvement and improving flows. I'm wondering if you can dive in a little bit there and provide some more nuanced commentary on where you are seeing improvement. Can you tie it back to whether, how much maybe related to or what the lag was to beginning of reopening of economic activity versus perhaps consumer stimulus funds that were being distributed? Just looking for some color of how you're thinking about like what's driving the improvement and then how that could be extrapolated out.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Yes, I think that's a great question. If you look at -- let me start very recently first decline where it started. It's obviously to do with lockdown. So it's subject to lockdown orders by governments and especially on our dedicated locations. There were shelter in place orders, obviously people couldn't go home on retailer to make a transaction that's impacted. But we believe that also the financial pressure is probably the main one, which has factored to our decline. And that combined with that, so we saw in late March the significant decline in our transactions. So if you look at then the time, over time, as the lockdown gets, and the stimulus packages get in the U.S. but mainly Germany, Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland, we see improvements there. And as the people could get their stimulus package and they get economical more advance, they start to send money. And at the same time also, some Mexico peso weakness versus U.S., we saw stronger growth there. And coming back on the Mexican pesos weakness helped us to send money to Mexico from the U.S. the corridor. In fact Banco De Mexico, Raj, I believe yesterday they gave the numbers, the monthly numbers and we can see that we are gaining market share do so in Mexico.

Raj Agrawal

Analyst

Yes.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Our numbers have been improving pretty well there. So, it is hard to give a general answer. It is really much very much dependent but stimulus economic pressure, financial pressure on our customers is definitely I would say the main reason but at the same time the lockdowns which were forced on us based on the locations that impact our business.

James Faucette

Analyst

That's really that's really useful. And then my follow up question is just on the matter of pricing, if you can talk a little bit about what you've been seeing in the pricing environment variations or changes? And where that any changes may be coming from? And how you're factoring in potential pricing pressure or competition into at least your general outlook for the rest of the year. Do you expect more pricing competition than historical left? Just trying to get a gauge of how you're factoring that in?

Raj Agrawal

Analyst

Yes, I would say that the pricing environment has continued to be relatively stable when you look at on a global macro basis. So, no big changes there. We are continuing to look at all of our thousands of corridors where it's productive to change pricing and we're always reading pricing up and down, as we said before, James. But I think the primary goal we have is to ensure that we get the best lifetime value of our customer sends. So, we may do promotional pricing. We may do other things that attract the customer and that's really what we're going after. We're doing a variety of different things in all of our quarters and by different channels too wherever it makes sense. So I don't think pricing in this environment is really going to be a factor versus what it's been historically or at least in recent periods. So we don't see that changing dramatically.

James Faucette

Analyst

Great. Thank you so much. And thanks for all the hard work keeping critical lifelines for a lot of people open. Thanks.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Ramsey El-Assal of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Ramsey El-Assal

Analyst

Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my question tonight. I want to follow-up on Jason's question from earlier. And speaking about the April trends and the end of April trend. Has government stimulus has it had any impact on outbound volumes from any place obviously [ph] like in the US? In other words, is that something that benefits your user base? And then I also wanted to ask about the improvement you're seeing in April. Did you see improvement across the business in terms of walk-in versus digital or was a really more digitally focused, which I would be surprised to hear but wanted to ask?

Raj Agrawal

Analyst

Yes, really good questions. I would say that the pressure on the business initially in late March, and early April was really driven by people having to stay at home and not being able to get out and that really continued on even in the month of April. We did see some uptick when stimulus checks and other payments were being made around the world. So, that certainly has helped our consumer base. So, even though there may be some unemployment that's negatively impacting think being offset to some degree by all the other payments that are going out to individuals and that could sustain for a little while until things get back on track. And then with respect to April trends, it was a more broad based improvement. Certainly we saw acceleration in our digital business, but we also saw improvements in resale as things opened up. Germany is a great example where people were back doing the things that they were doing before. But not only did digital accelerate, but we also saw improvements in the retail business, which is positive for us.

Ramsey El-Assal

Analyst

Okay, that's really interesting. And then a quick follow-up. I was wondering if you could speak to the tax rate expectations for the year, is that the number came in a little lower than our models and just kind of figure out how to model that after the rest of the year. And then just lastly, home delivery, is that something you could scale up? Could that be a new model that accrues a little more importance for Western Union overtime or is that more of the cost structure may not support it?

Raj Agrawal

Analyst

Yes, let me address the tax question and then I'll give it to Hikmet on the home delivery. The tax rate was 12.5% in the first quarter. It's in line with roughly where we expect getting to the mid-teens or so for the full year. Obviously a number of different scenarios could play out this year and we don't know exactly which revenue scenario plays out. But these, we've modeled a number of different potential outcomes. And they all seem to spit out something in the mid-teens range for tax rates. And that's not really the biggest driver, obviously, this year. So that's what I would think about. And we have some discrete benefits that helped us in the first quarter. But I would see it being in the mid-teens range for the full year and maybe I'll give it to you Hikmet for home delivery question.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

That's a good question. Well, we did start the home delivery in several countries, especially in developing countries in partnership with our agents. Some of our agents already have home delivery express services. And we did do home delivery like Colombia or Philippines, and we start -- and the usage is quite good. Due to lock down some of our customers also some people with elder people or people who can't go to the location, the only way to pay out is the cash. We do deliver that home. And it could be a service, especially for developing countries. And it's really a partnership with our agents and agents to go to the rural areas and deliver to our customers the transaction.

Ramsey El-Assal

Analyst

Great. Thanks so much for taking the question.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Andrew Jeffrey of SunTrust. Please go ahead.

Andrew Jeffrey

Analyst

Hey guys, good afternoon, thanks for taking question. I'm wondering about as a think about all the emphasis on expansion of digital globally, which makes a ton of sense. What are some of the gating factors? And I'm thinking along two lines; one would be the four plus billion accounts. I guess what are going to be the key factors what's your unique influence in terms of driving payout to those accounts? Assuming a lot of it's changing the sender behavior. And two would be; just for the company talk about accelerating digital expansion. I'm wondering, is that opportunistic? What are the factors that gain the ability to more rapidly expand into digital markets globally?

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Well, Andrew good question. The investments over the years we invested is paying back obviously. If you remember at the start that it was only a few years ago, 2% to 3% of our general revenue was or transaction where digital transactions now in April we are going to have 30% of our transactions coming from digital generated transactions. I think this growth will continue to grow as more and more customer segments are joining our network. And we do offer them not only payouts on the receipts that not only pay out in retail, but at the same time, also on accounts and on mobile wallets. This is big. And we do have real time payouts in 50 countries, billions of accounts where you can pay a real time. And that's good. So on the how can that relate on the receive side. It depends on the customer segmentation. If the customers want to have money on an account, they get money paid out in an account. If they want to have it on a cash, paid off really on a cash payout. Depends also on the economical ecosystem of the environment, in the rural area of India it would be hard, most of the customers want to payout in cash or is it in Mumbai many customers want to pay out on an account. We really as Western Union, we can do that both in real time payout in real time in retail location or in an account. And this is huge, and it's going to continue to have. And it's really the combination on the send side and receive side.

Andrew Jeffrey

Analyst

Okay, I appreciate it.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Bryan Keane of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Hi, Bryan.

Bryan Keane

Analyst

Hi, guys, how are you doing? Just thinking about that move towards digital? Can you just talk a little bit how the digital competition differs from retail competition for you guys? Go ahead.

Raj Agrawal

Analyst

I was just going to say that, one of the key things that we said earlier, is that our digital business is unique. And that majority of it still is -- the majority of the revenues that we earned today are still earned from a retail oriented payouts in our total digital business. And that's not really the area where other digital players are trying to make begin works because you really that's where the brand really plays a bigger part in terms of the end to end transaction. And if you look at the other digital players, we have already a very large space that we're working from. We also believe that we can expand our capabilities all over the world faster than others might be able to do. We already have more than 75 send countries. We have account funding capabilities in many of those. We have mobile capabilities also in many of those send markets. And then we can send into an account into 100 markets as well and to reach into real time in 60 countries. So just creating more of that network and infrastructure, we've been on an accelerated path there to get there over the next few years to get really good omnichannel capabilities on both sending and receiving side of the equation, which is not really something others can match when you're thinking about both retail and digital combined.

Bryan Keane

Analyst

In that 30% percentage of volume and that's go into digital and April does that have any retail in it any retail in one side of the transaction or that's 100% digital?

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Initiated digital, 100% initiated with digital on the send side, Bryan and payout could be a payout on a retail or an account.

Bryan Keane

Analyst

Yes. And as your mix of that of between how much of that is digital on the on the payout versus retail.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

A majority of that is retail, but the strong growth comes from account. As I mentioned earlier, the account payout was in April, I believe 90% growth.

Bryan Keane

Analyst

Got it. Got it. And then the only other question I have is just thinking about migrant movement. What you guys are seeing there? Did you see many migrants either move back home during this time? And then how do you think the impacts will be on any restrictions on immigration going forward from borders being put up by other countries? Thanks.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Well, the last six, seven weeks, the COVID-19 really started. Even earlier in China and Italy, we did not see any big changes on the migrant movements or migration patterns. The big question mark is that what the economic environment financial environment of these people look like. The unemployment rate and GDP growth are definitely indicators. That's an unknown. That's one of the reason we are -- the volatility given the volatility, we are not giving a 2020 guidance. But we have not seen any changes on the migrants moving back or you know, less migrants or something like that.

Bryan Keane

Analyst

Got it. Thanks and stay healthy.

Raj Agrawal

Analyst

Thank you. You too.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Thanks, Ryan.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Tim Willi of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Tim Willi

Analyst

Hi, thanks and good afternoon. Just one question on marketing. So given the shift in the business. And I guess just the overall environment and then your comments around efficiency and causes. Can you talk a bit about what you're doing with marketing and branding in sort of how much of that is moving digital versus maybe traditional? And just sort of how that plays into the digital growth, the productivity, the costs as you're talking about just any way to think about how you're evolving that line item within the income statement?

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Well, obviously, we are continuing to invest in marketing, right? Because you could see also during the crisis, the trust of our consumers is huge to our brands and the brand awareness and being for them here during the crisis and during good times and bad times, has been always progressing in year. And that's going continue to happen. We are investing definitely from direct marketing activities on the digital side where we gain new customer segments, but at the same time our agents continue to promote together with us our brand on the retail side because as we said earlier the combination between digital and retail payout is huge. And the brand awareness on the receive side drives also the transaction. Look if you are in a rural area in the Philippines. And you want to have the money immediately you call your relatives in Finland and say that okay send me money via Western Union because the next corner I can pick up the money in minutes or you have a bank account you send a message to your relative on the send side in the UK, you send me the money I will receive into this account. And this has been -- this brand awareness is in the receiving countries huge. We actually have in within our consumer 90% brand awareness which is one of the probably leading one and the marketing investments drives [indiscernible] that is s driving the revenue and transaction growth. So during the pandemic, as you know has been several, the Mother's Day is coming, there was Easter, Orthodox Easter and Ramadan. And these are definitely promotions we are going to continue to do to attract customers to our branch and promote digital and also the safety and trust completely investor.

Operator

Operator

At this time, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Hikmet Ersek for any closing remarks.

Hikmet Ersek

Analyst

Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you everyone for joining the call today. It's a special calls during this crisis as COVID-19. It's not easy for the world. It's not easy for the communities. I would like to take first of all shareholders for the trust on Western Union, obviously. But also I would like to thank especially the customers for their loyalty and fighting. Many of our customers I mentioned earlier are heroes, are really on the front lines. They're fighting and helping many people, is it a nurse or is it an ambulance driver, is it keeping a retail shop open. They're really frontline heroes. And at the same time, they really think about their loved ones back home. And it's not easy, helping people and at the same time, think about your family members far away from you. And one of the things they do immediately is that they sent back home money, and the trust we built over years or decades. The trust we build with our customers obviously pays back and makes us stronger. And I would like to thank also our employees for their dedication and for their hard work during this times and puts us in as a special company. And we continue to be very dedicated to serve the communities and our shareholders. And I would like to, with that, thank you for joining the call.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.