Western Union Wednesday announced an agreement with WeChat, a leading social communication platform owned by China-based Tencent Holdings Ltd., to give WeChat users in the U.S. the ability to send money cross-border to recipients in 200 countries and territories via the Western Union Connect platform.

Western Union said the agreement marks WeChat as the first social communication application to provide a technology platform to support person-to-person cross-border funds transfer capabilities to more than 200 countries and territories, according to a press release. The company said the integration with WeChat will be introduced to more countries in the future.

"Western Union's omnichannel strategy is combining our digital presence with our distribution network that pays out in over 200 countries and territories," Hikmet Ersek, CEO of Western Union, said in a statement. "Given the proliferation of social media around the world, we are expanding our activities in this exciting area. It only makes sense to include the WeChat platform as part of the company's innovative digital money transfer capabilities. By teaming with WeChat and deploying the WU Connect platform to its U.S. users, Western Union is offering yet another new method for consumers to move money worldwide."

WeChat, together with its sister product Weixin in China, boasted more than 650 million monthly active user accounts as of the end of September.