When two forward-looking companies share the same vision, growth becomes a shared journey. The partnership between AirAsia MOVE and Antom was one that began with enabling payment methods for users in Southeast Asia and has become a collaboration that’s now expanded beyond payments. It’s about growing together, combining strengths across teams and business units to unlock new possibilities.
AirAsia, Asia’s leading low-cost airline, had been a long-time partner of 2C2P, a full-suite payments provider under Antom. With AirAsia’s digital transformation, AirAsia MOVE was formed as the OTA platform under the Capital A ecosystem now offering flights, hotels, airport transfers, insurance, and more. The all-in-one travel and lifestyle brand now offers users access to over 700 airlines and a million hotels, ride-hailing, duty free, and financial services in one app.
Besides integrating Antom and 2C2P’s advanced payment solutions, including payment orchestration and acquiring for both cards and local payment methods (LPMs), into AirAsia MOVE’s platform, the partnership also sees the strategic partnership between Capital A and Ant International growing from strength to strength – tapping into 2C2P’s and Antom’s capabilities, Ant’s solution and so forth.
Anderson Yong, Head of Enterprise Payments, AirAsia MOVE shares, “Ant, Antom and 2C2P, they are forward-looking, they are also innovative, always on the look-out for innovation and they are willing to listen to what we share and the vision and what we want. And this will certainly help AirAsia MOVE to be our favourite online travel agent. And that is how we could delight our passengers. And we want to be providing inclusive services and expand in ASEAN and beyond.”
Hear more from Anderson Yong, Head of Enterprise Payments, AirAsia MOVE and Diego Garcia, Deputy Director of Global Strategic Accounts for 2C2P, Antom, Ant International in this conversation hosted by Paul Tunstall, SVP International of the Merchant Advisory Group.
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Transcript
Paul:
Following our conversations on travel payments and gaming payments, today we're joined by Anderson Young, he is the Head of Enterprise Payments for AirAsia MOVE. And also joining us is Diego Garcia, Deputy Director of Global Strategic Accounts for 2C2P, Antom, Ant International.
Many will be familiar with AirAsia, Asia's leading low-cost airline, and AirAsia MOVE, the OTA platform from Capital A ecosystem offering flights, hotels, ride hailing, duty-free and financial services in one app. Both brands under the Capital A ecosystem provide travellers with holistic travel and lifestyle experiences.
I’ll let Anderson and Diego share on this partnership that's beyond payments and how AirAsia MOVE and Antom are shaping tomorrow's travel and lifestyle payments together.
What drives the partnership between Ant and AirAsia MOVE?
Diego:
I think it was around 18 months ago when the two management teams came together to look at how we could do more and more strategically across the different business units not only in payments, but also in rewards, in remittances, in cross-border user payments, in FX, and mini programmes.
It was a really exciting and ambitious mandate behind which we signed an MOU to put these initiatives and different work streams together. So, fast forward to today, working with Anderson has been a very, very interesting last 18 months. We've looked at quite a lot of countries, not only in Thailand, but also in Cambodia, in Singapore, in Malaysia, in the Philippines, and more to come.
AirAsia MOVE is a very dynamic business that cuts across so many different verticals in lifestyle, not only in travel, but also in local services and entertainment. So, we've been trying to sort of learn and work together to build payment acceptance use cases across different verticals and also try to make payment as inclusive as possible.
Obviously, as most of us know, card payments are not necessarily ubiquitous in the APAC region and so having real-time payments or domestic debit schemes is also fundamental. There's also been some pieces on fraud as well to try to curtail risk management exposures and the sky's the limit, really. We have a lot that we're working on at the moment and in parallel to payment acceptance there's conversations also on dynamic FX, you know, helping users pay in their currency of choice as AirAsia is multiplying the destinations, or AirAsia MOVE is multiplying the destinations that they cover and other businesses as well.
Anderson:
So Paul, what is going be interesting next year is one of them, will be looking at Ant and 2C2P dynamic FX solution, and as well as AI driven payment orchestration layer. I'm very keen actually to look at that, working closely with Diego and the rest of the team members to look at launching both of them next year.
How does AirAsia’s digital evolution redefine business, payments and the customer experience?
Anderson:
AirAsia’s digital transformation started during the COVID pandemic. Everybody got caught off-guard. During that period, we started to pivot. We look at how we can diversify, how we can strategise to stay in business, even though the border is all closed. And that is when the AirAsia superapp was set up.
As we move along and we move out of COVID, we expanded more to be a full-fledged online travel agent where we serve 700 different airlines. We sell over one million different hotels in ASEAN and also beyond. We also expanded our business now to have a line of business, an LOB that looks after and focus on duty-free. And then when we expanded the flights. Last year, we changed our name to be AirAsia MOVE.
And we evolved definitely together with what market has evolved to. And interestingly, on the payment side, we also have evolved tremendously because now we are focusing on looking at providing the most seamless, the most convenient way to make payments for all our passengers.
Credit card is always going to be there. But then again, in some markets especially in Southeast Asia, domestic payment methods has increased and gained market share tremendously, and as well as alternative payment methods, like the likes of e-wallets and whatnot. If I may share with you a market that is very interesting in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, credit card penetration is very, very low. It's just high single digit. Their number one payment method is actually virtual account and followed by direct debit, which is internet banking and then it will be the e-wallets.
Now when we at AirAsia MOVE, especially my team and I, when we look at enabling any payment methods in any market, we will look at what is the customer's preference, what is the payment landscape in individual markets before we say, hey, this is a payment method that I'm going to enable. In ASEAN, we have got almost all covered but now we are looking at beyond ASEAN and we want to leverage on this partnership because of Antom's presence beyond ASEAN.
And the other part is also we look at data. To us, data is very important. One example that we have used data to provide the best product or offerings to our customers is that we know what they are spending and by knowing what they are spending, what's their preference, we will be able to curate or offer them add-on, in our terms we call it an ancillary product that actually meets what they want in the form of insurance, in the form of an e-SIM product. And by looking at working with our overseas partners, we can look at now solving the first and the last mile of the travel journey. So it's more inclusive right now. That is what we envisage and we dream to be – the OTA of choice for all our travellers.
Diego:
It's been very inspirational for us to understand the ecosystem that AirAsia MOVE is building and also having the opportunity to work together to co-build solutions as Anderson was saying before. So we're talking about in-air, in-flight payment, kiosk in the airport terminal as well as app or checkout page. Omnichannel is one of the first areas that I would point out in terms of us trying to co-build solutions in that area with the complexities that that brings.
Secondly is on the orchestration piece. So how do you tackle payments from so many different destinations as well as users from the whole world? So I think making sure that we have at least the basic orchestration capabilities to serve payments for all the different AOCs, the different airlines that sit under the group has been also very, very interesting, to build those partnerships where we didn't have them or to optimise and try to drive success rates.
So I think one of the very inspiring pieces of AirAsia MOVE is their goal to have as close to 100% payment success rate as possible and that has also sort of driven us to strive for new ways of recovering lost transactions, payment failures to get a better experience and then I guess is the exposure to multiple currencies so that's I think what Anderson was mentioning in terms of what's coming up next in store is how do we allow users to pay in their currency of choice so I think that's obviously been very inspirational for us and I think the fact that there's more and more lines of business coming every few months, Anderson will introduce to us new verticals and each vertical has some nuances whether it's in how do you automate refunds or how do you provide more data fields in LOBs, lines of business, that are more prone to chargebacks and so on and so forth.
What’s AirAsia MOVE’s secret to mastering Southeast Asia and targeting new markets?
Anderson:
I think it's very important for us to really understand each of our markets. Now, if we then look at ASEAN as a whole, we know card is here, but we also know that the domestic payment methods is widely used. We look at research, we go down to the ground to understand first Southeast Asia, what is the customer payments, what are the nuances, what are the noises. And then we will bring it back and we strategise from there.
In Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, QR payment is one of the payments that is being driven and being pushed very, very hard even at the governments’ level. Right now, in these three major markets in Southeast Asia, big markets in Southeast Asia, QR payment is so receptive and everybody is talking about it.
As we grow out of Southeast Asia around ASEAN, again we will look at each individual market. What is the payment method that the consumer really likes? And, of course beyond, in Europe. Visa, Mastercard, Diners, or Amex. It's a given; everybody is still comfortable using that. You will see pockets of opportunities in terms of wallets, or you will see opportunities in terms of internet banking. But then, how do we drive that?
We also need to then look at our data. The data that we have is our consumer payments, our customer or passenger payments throughout. And they have got certain periods, certain markets, they might even have certain preference. For example, during their payday, they might just want to pay with GCash in the Philippines instead of cards. But then, if it is in the middle of the month, they might just prefer to use credit cards. And then we set the parameter using the data as our baseline that we understand and we push which promotion more for that period And of course we look at payment success rate.
Because to me, the customer is at the centre of everything. If the customer cannot make payments, you will lose the customer. And we need to then constantly look at how do we evolve from whatever we have today. How do we make customer payments journey as seamless as possible? I'm still trying to look at how we can do that. Just one click, check out.
Diego:
A lot of different initiatives were coming to mind. I think obviously how do you overlay risk with success rate is fundamental and think that's I guess the orchestration 2.0 initiative that we're looking at is how do we create fallback channels. This is something that we were just talking about Anderson and I recently is if a certain acquirer fails for one transaction, can we immediately have a backup set up?
Right now, we've been in expansion mode, how to make sure we cater for all users so that we have inclusive payments, be it with government QR codes or card installments for those that need to split their payments. But then now it's like, how do we take that to the next level by having different layers of payment service providers behind every single transaction? So obviously optimised cost maybe, but primarily to drive a good customer experience. And I think the one-click checkout that Anderson mentioned is also like a of a grail that we're all looking towards and it's exciting to have a partner that believes in that a lot and we're trying to look at how we build that.
Antom has a solution called EasySafePay that essentially tries to tokenise alternative payment methods. And also where the payment fails because of insufficient funds, can you bring that inside the payment journey to recover that? Or the user is happy to save, store that wallet token, it can be saved so that in the upcoming transaction, payment can happen without any authorisation if no risk engines are triggered so definitely all of these are things that we're looking at driving.
How has working with Ant, Antom, 2c2p been helpful?
Anderson:
With this partnership and then especially with Ant, Antom and also 2C2P, they are a like-minded partner. And they are always supportive of us. They are there to work with us when we encounter any challenges that we have to solve together. And I think they understand what we want as a merchant and they see and appreciate where we want to go and also to achieve the goals together. And the most important point is that we share the same vision which is our customer, the customer is always at the centre of everything that we do. That is the vision that I think clicks everything together and from there it becomes our objective, the shared objective.
What defines a good partner for AirAsia MOVE?
Anderson:
I've been sharing this with Diego and the rest of the senior management team at Antom and also 2C2P. When we scale and we talk about orchestration layer, this orchestration layer has been around for many, many years ever since e-commerce is there. How we take it further or enhance it further or evolve further? When you have a robust enough payment orchestration layer, then you really are able to cover ASEAN and beyond. It's just not about commercial anymore.
It's just not about success rate anymore, but it's about scalability. And here we talk about how we can again provide a payment type or payment option that the customer really wants to use.
If not, then I think we will always have the normal traditional payment methods.
To me, cards is normal, traditional. Internet banking is okay, it's traditional. APMs is I think going to be traditional soon. Then what's next? How do we then have a robust, smart orchestration layer that can help us grow, scale it up, look at the stability of the system, faster turnaround in terms of transaction processing. And that is how I think we have to work towards. And that's how we're going to delight our customers.
How does orchestration work across business units in this partnership?
Diego:
To drive that understanding, not only of our team, the core team, but also of our orchestration.
team or our payment operations team, etc so that everyone's briefed and the machine can work right and when the request comes in when we co-design a new solution, the different parts of our organisation are geared towards that and that informs different business units.
For example, we have Alipay+ which is working with BigPay to drive cross-border payments, we are also powering top-ups for BigPay to make the cost structure and the payment success rate higher so those BigPay users can then spend, let's say, in Japan when they travel. The FX team is relevant to ensure that users can pay in their currency of choice, which then Antom has to support AirAsia in acquiring. So I think that requires quite a lot of coordination between not only just Anderson's team and myself, but also between quite a lot of different businesses.
Having somebody like Anderson that can sort of orchestrate, using this word, to understand all the different requirements and setup of the business is fundamental so that piece is definitely there.
The next is how can we bring some of our automation tools into play, right? So that's where sort of AI-empowered orchestration will hopefully support to further some of the interests that we've discussed now in terms of having, making sure that the coverage is there and making sure that we're monitoring and alerting on any payment success rate issues, making sure that we have the right fallbacks for transactions and risk is being addressed in time. So, I think definitely the personal element is very important, albeit AI is always a tool.
Anderson:
It depends on which part of the business. There are some businesses that we said that we have launched. It really requires a lot of monitoring, very close monitoring, that to ensure the success rate is high and also it's within our control that we can change or not. But there are situations that again through robust monitoring tools that we have in place that we can detect downtime. And this is on the issuer side. When I say issuer side it means it could be from the bank side, the internet banking, the host went down or the APM provider, they are down, and with all the data that we have and what we have built today, we are able to recognise that early and that is where we can then switch to another provider or if that is, let's say for example, there's an internet banking that's specific country and they are the only one that can authorise it because they are the bank. And we have smart tools that can disable that payment feature for that period in time if it is down. So we are using a lot of data and we are always ever improving and exploring which are the best ways, which are the best solutions for us to look at, and then if it works for us, it meets our requirement, we will then explore and go implementing or deploying it.
Diego:
I would add on.
I think different partners have different focus areas and different levels of requirements. I think something that we've co-built is this alert system, right? So that when for a certain period of time, a certain payment method has different degradations, we can alert that is allowing us to stay one step ahead of the curve in terms of avoiding users suffering live issues with that. That's amazing to see that with the right level of focus and discipline, we can manage to have clear guidelines across different regions and different payment methods to ensure that all users are safe and being able to pay.
What role does AI play in AirAsia MOVE’s business?
Anderson:
With over 22 years of data, we have gained deep insights of our customers’ and passengers’ profiles. Yes, data is very important. We are able to look at very specific, or rather very targeted marketing campaigns.
So with data, if you have the chance, if you have not downloaded my app, please download my app and see. A lot more AI, a lot more targeted and it cuts across all digital platforms. And we know that the success rate, or rather we can get what we want in terms of the KPI.
And then when you look at payments again, we know when we should not promote certain payments. In certain markets again, not all, they don't cut across all, no one size fits all. By looking at historical data we will be able to do that.
Paul:
I do have your app by the way, given my Southeast Asian travel. Anything to add to that, Diego?
Diego:
One interesting angle in terms of that targeting. It's the first time that I work with a partner that instead of providing us marketing inventory for us to then distribute across our Alipay+ Rewards (A+ Rewards) marketing channels which is one of our key growth initiatives for our merchant partners. AirAsia MOVE has decided to do the opposite.
They have asked us to provide Alipay+ Rewards as a widget into AirAsia MOVE making the OTA or the superapp empowered with much more content because of what Anderson was saying, because they have the ability to know who wants what at what time and in what market. So I think that that's also proof that data piece is key to speak to the right user base about the right offering. One of the things that I want to discuss with Anderson and I haven't had time yet is Antom Copilot. We've not really had time to discuss how this could help but hopefully that could bring speed to our replies, so if you want to know what's the payment success rate of the Kazakhstan e-wallet A or you know card payments in Japan, this can be provided through this AI assistant to you or any contracts or past material that you want to access so I think that's one piece that hopefully we can see drive operational efficiency.
Anderson:
If I may add on as well, Ant, Antom and 2C2P, they are also forward-looking, they are also innovative, always on the look-out for innovation and they are willing to listen to what we share and the vision and what we want.
So I think, again, like a like-minded partner, the relationship grows stronger. They understand us better. Hence, I think we can already look at delivering a few of the solutions which I mentioned earlier in the conversation. That is the testament of a very sound, strong partnership that we have. And this will certainly help AirAsia MOVE to be our favourite online travel agent. And that is how we could delight our passengers. And we want to be providing inclusive services and expand in ASEAN and beyond.
Paul:
I just want to thank Anderson and Diego for the insightful discussion today. I look forward to seeing how this partnership evolves and gets stronger between AirAsia, AirAsia MOVE, Antom and Ant, and how you guys are shaping tomorrow's travel and lifestyle beyond payments.
