The world’s largest payment transfer company, which was hit during the credit crunch as remittances declined, has been seeing a turnaround as the US recovers from the financial crisis and even raised its dividend twice in the last year.

“The consumer-to-consumer business is growing in each of our regions, and our bill payments revenue growth turned positive in the quarter for the first time since 2008,” Chief Executive Hikmet Ersek said.

Revenue at Western Union’s core consumer-to-consumer (C2C) segment rose eight percent — its highest level in almost two years — on a transaction growth of 6 percent.

Ersek said Western Union was gaining market share not only in its core money transfer business, but was entering new customer segments with electronic channels and business-to-business activities.

The company, which has also been focusing on building its electronic channels business that includes westernunion.com and mobile payments, said revenue in that segment climbed 35 percent, and that it had 1.1 million prepaid cards in force at the end of the second quarter.

Earlier this month, Western Union said it would buy Travelex’s global business payments division in a deal valued at nearly $1 billion to enhance its international business payments services.

Western Union expects to earn $1.53-$1.58 a share for the full year, excluding restructuring charges.

Analysts expect full-year earnings of $1.51 a share.

The company had previously forecast a profit of $1.47 to $1.52 a share.

For the second quarter, the company posted net income of $263.2 million, or 41 cents a share, up from $221 million, or 33 cents, a year ago.

Englewood, Colorado-based Western Union earned 42 cents a share, excluding items, during the quarter.

Western Union, which competes with MoneyGram International, said revenue grew 7 percent to $1.37 billion in the quarter.

Analysts were looking for a profit of 38 cents a share, before items, on revenue of $1.33 billion.