Scale and simplify transactions with Universal API Management and Anypoint Code Builder

Stephen Hsu (00:06):
Western Union is really making a global impact. They're more relevant and more important than ever before for our friends and family all around the world. To share with you how we bring the customer 360 to life with them, let's welcome to the stage, Jing Li, director of product management.

Jing Li (00:26):
Thanks, Steven, wow. Western Union has brought some incredible innovations to the world. Now I want to talk about how much I love Stephen and Ashley's messages about building for reuse and automation. And no, it's not just because Stephen is my boss, but because they touch as something that's very near and dear to my own heart, making things simple. Now you heard Stephen talk about API sprawl. You heard Brett talk about complexity. There are so many things that are happening: tool sprawl, process sprawl, that are making our jobs and our lives more complicated than it's ever been before. So imagine the time and money savings if you could automate and simplify every step of your business.

Jing Li (01:15):
Well, they say seeing is believing. So we're going to take a look at how Western Union leans into this idea of simplicity and scale millions of daily transactions around the world. We're also going to take a look at how they use our new Universal API Management and Anypoint Code Builder products to create a truly compelling experience for their end customer. So remember Amy and her nonprofit Sprout? Well, Amy has been working with Julie to grow Sprout's footprint in Europe. They've also partnered with Western Union to help them receive donations and transfer this money worldwide to communities in need. Western Union uses the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform to develop these donation and transfer capabilities so that, when Julie goes to make her own donation, the process is entirely seamless.

Jing Li (02:09):
Let's take a closer look. So Julie logs into the Sprout app and goes to make a donation. She sees that Western Union is already listed as an integrated payment method. So she selects it since she's also a Western Union customer. She's then automatically redirected to the Western Union app where she logs in and selects the option to send money. She then puts in her donation amount of $3,500 because she has a very big heart, and she can see the real time exchange rates and what she would end up paying in euros. The app then automatically fills out the receiving account information for Sprout so Julie doesn't have to type in anything manually. All Julie has to do is review this information and hit send. And in just those few short steps, this money is already on its way to Sprout to help struggling farmers around the world.

Jing Li (03:07):
Now that process was incredibly simple for Julie, right? It took maybe about 45 seconds out of her day. She could do it while waiting in line at the bank or at a coffee shop. But I want us to really stop and think about what's happening in the background, about all of the APIs and the backend processes that have to be connected in order for this experience to be so seamless for Julie. First, for her to just log in, Western Union had to integrate the customer database and the core banking platforms together. Then for her to see the exchange rate information, they also had to integrate with the foreign exchange system. All of these are independent and some of them are hard-to-reach systems that Western Union had to bring together to create the money transfer API that powers their mobile app.

Jing Li (03:56):
Luckily they had Anypoint Code Builder, which gave their teams a single unified IDE to design, develop, test, and then securely deploy this API into production. The best part is Code Builder also plugs directly into Anypoint Exchange where Western Union has already created a reusable repository of existing APIs they've been building with MuleSoft plus MuleSoft's own catalog of connectors and now, thanks to our amazing partner Deloitte, a full suite of accelerators with their bank suite. All of these reusable building blocks came together to cut down months and, in some instances, years of manual and tedious point-to-point integrations.

Jing Li (04:42):
Then Western Union can then publish this API into their partner API portal and this is what allowed Sprout to come in, discover the API, and then integrate it into their own donation process. This allows them to autopopulate the payment information so that Julie doesn't have to type in anything manually. Whew, that was a lot of work for 45 seconds, right?

Jing Li (05:08):
And you know, it may seem like a lot to do for a single 45-second transaction. But when you think about the millions of transactions per day, 365 days of the year, the overall impact to Western Union and to their end customers is enormous. By embracing this idea of simplicity, Western Union was able to drive more efficiency for their teams, help them do more with less, and ultimately create a very compelling experience for their customers. This allows them to better fulfill their mission to help people and businesses move money for better; better communities, better economies, and a better world.