Western Union Signs Exclusive Agreement with Travelex for Money Transfer Services; Agreement Adds Significant Breadth to Western Union's Quarter Million Global Locations

DENVER and LONDON--(CCNMatthews - Jan 17, 2006) -

Western Union Financial Services Inc., a worldwide leader in money transfer services, has signed an exclusive global agreement with Travelex, the world's largest non-bank foreign exchange payments company. Travelex locations will now only offer the Western Union Money Transfer^® service, making it available at 650 of their 700 retail locations in city centres and across 97 airports worldwide. Travelex serves over 29 million customers in 20 countries each year. Western Union and Travelex will begin the roll-out of money transfer services to Travelex locations immediately.

The agreement marks an important milestone in the ongoing expansion of the Western Union global network. The addition of Travelex, in particular locations at the world's leading airports, extends Western Union's connection to the more than 185 million people living outside their country of origin (1).

Moreover, 40 percent of the world's airline passengers now pass through airports where Travelex operates its retail foreign exchange branches, including the major gateways at London, New York, Hong Kong, Frankfurt and Sydney.

"We selected Western Union because of its ability to provide quick, convenient and secure service to our customers around the world," said Clive Kahn, chief executive officer of Travelex. "Offering a brand like Western Union supports our goals of meeting our customers' needs and growing the Travelex business worldwide. Our customer base will benefit greatly from having the choice to better service their money transfer needs."

"The addition of Travelex locations to the Western Union global network fortifies our focus on high-quality customer service and will complement our valued services," said Christina Gold, president, Western Union Financial Services Inc. "The combination of Western Union and Travelex increases choice and control for customers seeking speed, reliability and convenience in money transfer services."

For more information on Western Union's Money Transfer services or for a comprehensive list of Western Union Agent locations, call 800-435-2226 or visit www.westernunion.com.

About Western Union and First Data

First Data Corp. (NYSE:FDC) is a leading provider of electronic commerce and payment solutions for businesses and consumers worldwide. Serving 4.1 million merchant locations, 1,500 card issuers and millions of consumers, First Data powers the global economy by making it easy, fast and secure for people and businesses around the world to buy goods and services using virtually any form of payment. The company's portfolio of services and solutions includes credit, debit, private-label, smart and stored-value card issuing and merchant transaction processing services; money transfer services; money orders; fraud protection and authentication solutions; check guarantee and verification services through TeleCheck; as well as Internet commerce and mobile solutions. Western Union and its subsidiary, Orlandi Valuta, together make up one of the world's largest money transfer networks with approximately 250,000 Agent locations in more than 200 countries and territories. The company's STAR Network offers PIN-secured debit acceptance at approximately 1.9 million ATM and retail locations. For more information, visit www.firstdata.com.

About Travelex

Founded in 1976 by Lloyd Dorfman, Travelex is the world's largest non-bank foreign exchange payments company, serving over 29 million customers in 20 countries each year. Countries include United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom, Malta, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, France, Czech Republic, Italy, Bahrain, Oman, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand.

Corporate Services - Travelex is the world's largest non-bank provider of foreign exchange services to over 16,000 corporate clients across the globe. It offers a "one stop shop" for services ranging from cross 3 of 2 border payments to its risk solutions service for mitigating and hedging currency risk. For financial institutions, Travelex provides business process outsourcing for foreign exchange products, cross border settlement and bankers' drafts.

Outsourcing - Travelex is the world's largest and most automated provider of outsourced travel money and related fulfillment services for banks, financial institutions and travel agencies, processing over 3 million orders annually. Travelex offers its customers a full range of delivery channel options including telephone and Web-based ordering.

Retail services - 40 percent of the world's airline passengers now pass through airports at which Travelex operates its retail foreign exchange branches, including the major gateways at London, New York, Hong Kong, Frankfurt and Sydney. Other retail services and products range from prepaid cards, travellers cheques and money transfer to call centre services and travel insurance (U.S. only).

(1) Source - International Organization for Migration, 2005

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