SINGAPORE, July 28 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Abacus, Asia's leading
provider of travel solutions and services, today announced that
Abacus-connected travel agents can benefit from a safer and wider
choice of payment options that will energise sales, thanks to a new
partnership agreement with AsiaPay Limited, a leader in Internet
Payment Services.
With this partnership, Abacus-connected agencies can expand both
their walk-in, call-in and online business with AsiaPay's suite of
advanced electronic payment and fraud prevention solutions, all
within a 3D-secure and Payment Card Industry Data Security
Standards (PCIDSS) compliant environment, the payment industry's
highest level of data security.
Agencies will be able to offer a variety of payment choices to
their online & offline customers globally, covering credit and
debit cards, and other well accepted payment methods. With
3D-secure payment processing, online agencies will further reduce
their risk exposure of accepting card payments. Alarmingly, 60% of
online merchants in a recent SagePay global survey were unsure if
their payment partner was PCIDSS compliant, as many service
providers are neither compliant nor certified.
Mr. Brett Henry, Vice President Marketing, Abacus International,
said the combined regional expertise and local knowledge of the two
leading Asian companies would bring valuable benefits to the travel
industry's payments security.
"Secure, convenient and cost-effective payment facilities are the
biggest challenge faced by online merchants, especially traditional
merchants who are entering the online market for the first time.
Those agents who are unfamiliar with the dynamics of fraud, and
their customers' online payment behaviors are easy targets for
fraudsters," Mr. Henry said.
Today, the travel industry has lost about USD1.5 billion dollars to
online payment fraud, and this trend is rising at double digit pace
annually. Mr. Henry continued, "This partnership will assist
agencies to grow their revenue domestically, regionally, and
internationally by enabling travel merchants to offer card-and
non-card-based payment options to their customers. In turn, this
will significantly improve an agency's ability to serve a segment
of customers who do not own cards or bank accounts, for example,
the three million GCASH users in Philippines."
AsiaPay's suite of solutions will enable agencies to capture
payments securely via email, call center, walk-in, online portal,
and mobile (in select markets). A recent study by CyberSource
indicates that merchants that offer a range of the right payment
options across sales channels and currencies have proven to
increase sales by an average of 14 per cent.
AsiaPay CEO, Mr. Joseph Chan, said AsiaPay's virtual Payment
Point-of-Sale (POS) is a real-time, secure, premium service
offering. "This solution enables travel consultants to capture
payment and fulfill a sale immediately rather than transferring the
task to the mid-or back-office (MBO) function and waiting for
confirmation."
Mr. Chan continued, "Travel providers and other industry merchants
have seen improved internal credit card security, and increased
sales, without additional monthly POS hardware or communications
costs. In addition, through our partnership with Abacus, we are not
charging seat license fees or limiting the number of virtual POS
that an agency deploys."
To make it more convenient for agencies, Abacus has also integrated
AsiaPay's fraud detection and prevention services, and payment
services into Abacus PowerConnect and Abacus WebStart 2.0. By
employing Abacus PowerConnect and/or Abacus WebStart, agencies that
subscribe to AsiaPay will start to enjoy the benefits of a highly
secured payment service.
Mr. Henry added that the integration will save agencies the
thousands of dollars it costs to develop and incorporate payment
services into their website. "Not to mention, it is near impossible
to have your MBO provider enable such a service in the agency
workflow."
Mr. Chan added, "Our leading technology, expertise and strong local
service support in Asia and China will provide agents with the
peace of mind to continue to focus on growing their business and
leveraging the benefits that comes with gaining access to new
global markets and payment types via one convenient source."
About Abacus International
Singapore-based Abacus International is the Asia-Pacific's leading
provider of travel solutions and services with more than 20,000
travel agency locations in 24 markets. With over 22 years of
experience in fusing international best practices and local
expertise with global and local partnerships, Abacus provides
travel information and reservations specifically tailored to the
Asia-Pacific region. Abacus International is owned by Sabre and a
consortium of Asia's leading airlines including All Nippon Airways,
Cathay Pacific, China Airlines, EVA Airways, Garuda Indonesia,
Dragonair, Philippine Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Royal Brunei
Airlines, SilkAir and Singapore Airlines. Sabre is the global
leader in the electronic distribution of travel and travel related
services.
More information on Abacus can be found at http://www.abacus.com.sg
.
About AsiaPay
Founded in 2000, Hong Kong, AsiaPay Limited, a leading electronic
payment service, solution and technology provider in Asia, strives
to bring its award-winning, advanced, secure, integrated and
cost-effective electronic payment processing solutions and services
to banks, corporate, SMEs, charities in worldwide market for credit
card, debit card and other prepaid card payments. AsiaPay is an
accredited payment processor and payment gateway solution vendor
for banks, certified IPSP for merchants, certified international
3D-Secure vendor for Visa, MasterCard and JCB. It offers its
multi-currency, multi-lingual, multi-card and multi-channel
processing platform across Asia, with advanced fraud detection
capabilities and quality account service support.
Headquartered in Hong Kong, AsiaPay operates in 5 other countries
across Asia including Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia
and mainland China. For more information, please visit
http://www.asiapay.com .
For more information, please contact:
Vee Tong
Marketing Manager
Telă„© +65-6631-2725
Fax: +65-6631-2880
AsiaPay Payment Technology Pte Ltd
Addressă„©Level 27 Prudential Tower, 30 Cecil Street, Singapore
(049712)
SOURCE AsiaPay Limited