WU vs. PYPL, G, EXLS, WEX, MMS, PAY, EEFT, INOD, CSGS, and CASS
Should you be buying Western Union stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Western Union include PayPal (PYPL), Genpact (G), ExlService (EXLS), WEX (WEX), Maximus (MMS), Paymentus (PAY), Euronet Worldwide (EEFT), Innodata (INOD), CSG Systems International (CSGS), and Cass Information Systems (CASS).
Western Union vs. Its Competitors
PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) and Western Union (NYSE:WU) are both business services companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, media sentiment, risk, profitability, institutional ownership and earnings.
68.3% of PayPal shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.8% of Western Union shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.1% of PayPal shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.6% of Western Union shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Western Union has a net margin of 21.83% compared to PayPal's net margin of 14.49%. Western Union's return on equity of 66.11% beat PayPal's return on equity.
PayPal has a beta of 1.43, meaning that its share price is 43% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Western Union has a beta of 0.64, meaning that its share price is 36% less volatile than the S&P 500.
PayPal currently has a consensus price target of $84.50, indicating a potential upside of 25.55%. Western Union has a consensus price target of $8.61, indicating a potential upside of 7.84%. Given PayPal's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe PayPal is more favorable than Western Union.
PayPal has higher revenue and earnings than Western Union. Western Union is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than PayPal, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, PayPal had 60 more articles in the media than Western Union. MarketBeat recorded 64 mentions for PayPal and 4 mentions for Western Union. PayPal's average media sentiment score of 1.07 beat Western Union's score of 0.81 indicating that PayPal is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Summary
PayPal beats Western Union on 11 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.
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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding WU and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Media Sentiment Over Time
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
Western Union Competitors List
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This page (NYSE:WU) was last updated on 9/26/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
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