In addition, consumers in six countries can visit westernunion.com to send funds online using a credit or debit card directly to Smart Communications or Globe Telecom subscribers' "mobile wallets," or accounts tied to their mobile phones.

Globe Telecom currently has 24 million subscribers, of which 1 million are enrolled in its

GCASH mobile wallet service; Smart Communications has more than 45 million, of which more than 8 million are enrolled in Smart Money.

To send a Western Union Mobile Money Transfer to a Globe GCASH or Smart Money accountholder, consumers can simply visit a participating Western Union Agent location in 27 countries or a Western Union website in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom or the United States. The transaction is completed just like a traditional money transfer, except that the sender provides the receiver's mobile phone number and the funds are received in the receiver's "mobile wallet" instead of being paid out in cash.

"The Western Union Mobile Money Transfer service is a key part of our multi-channel strategy to offer our consumers numerous ways to send and receive money," said Khalid Fellahi, Western Union's Head of Mobile Transaction Services. "By continually expanding the number of locations where overseas Filipino workers can send funds to their loved ones' mobile phones, we believe we are making it more convenient for our consumers in the Philippines to receive funds how, where and when they want."

More than half of the 70,000 send locations are in the United States, and more than 12,000 are in the U.K.

Western Union also offers the Mobile Money Transfer service in Kenya with Safaricom; in Malaysia with Maxis; and in South Africa with Absa Bank. The company also recently announced an agreement with EnStream in Canada and has agreements with Zain (Airtel) in Africa and Orascom in the Middle East and with the State Bank of India, the Tunisian Post and with the Bank of Commerce & Development (BoCD) in Libya.