Briefing the media after the inauguration, Gold said, " Accomplishing 21,000 agent location in India is a significant milestone for us, as it is possible for the recipient to get the funds remitted to them within 10 minutes of being sent through Western Union." She disclosed that India presented a tremendous opportunity to her company as it constituted a miniscule percentage of Western Union''s global transactions.

In 2004-05 Western Union processed 97.5 million transactions worth an estimated $159 billion of which, remittances to India accounted for under 1million transactions. "We hope to handle remittances worth $1 billion to India this financial, " she disclosed. Currently Western Union has 2,20,000 agent location worldwide, she added.

Also briefing the media, Hikmet Ersek, senior vice president, Europe, Middle East, Africa and South Asia disclosed that the total inward remittances to India in the last financial year of $19.2 billion, as per RBI figures, constituted three per cent of India''s GDP. India, he stated, had the potential of emerging as Western Union''s fastest-growing market. "We are enhancing our network to maximise our reach in India to enable more people the convenience of Western Union money transfers," he added.

Highlighting the company'' growth plans in India, Anil Kapur, regional vice president, Western Union, disclosed that the company was strengthening its reach by appointing new agent locations in the smaller towns so that that it could also enter the domestic remittances market.

"India Post is a very valuable and reliable partner for our foreign inward remittances into India, and we hope to grow into the domestic remittances market with them, once we have the necessary permissions," Kapur said. He also added that entering domestic remittances would not involve competing with the postal system, which had a Rs5,000 ceiling.

Goa, he disclosed, would have a stronger Western Union presence to enable foreign tourists quicker remittances.

Western Union was started in the US using the ''pony express'' way back in 1851 in the ''wild West''. The company entered India in 1994, though it has seen its major growth in the last four or five years. In 1995, it became a part of the Fortune 500 First Data Corp, which provides e-commerce and payment systems to 1,400 credit card issuers.