Challenge

Airpaz launched in 2011 as a flight booking platform serving Southeast Asia. The Indonesia-based company has since evolved into a comprehensive travel booking platform, adding a mobile app and expanding to offer hotel bookings, travel bundles, prebooking services, and travel protection.

As Airpaz grew, it worked with multiple payment processors to serve travelers across the region. Preparing to expand into new markets like Australia, the company needed a payment partner that could reliably process payments in currencies like Australian dollars (AUD). Airpaz sought a reliable global payment processor that could support an array of payment methods and currencies while giving customers a simple, secure checkout experience to maximize conversion.

“As a multicountry company, we need to make our booking flow as simple as we can,” said Eka Buana, strategic payment partnership manager at Airpaz. “We need to offer our customers the payment methods they’re comfortable using, so they can easily book flights, hotels, and packages.”

Like other online travel agencies, Airpaz required strong fraud prevention tools to complement its in-house fraud protection engine. Airpaz needed a solution that could accurately differentiate between fraudulent activity and legitimate bookings, as their existing systems were occasionally filtering out potential customers. It also needed straightforward access to its payment data—something that was particularly important given its multiprocessor setup.

Solution

Buana and his team chose Stripe for its global reach: support for more than 100 payment methods and currencies across more than 195 countries. They began by implementing Stripe Payments in Australia to accept bookings in AUD. After seeing strong results, Airpaz migrated payment volume from its previous payment processor to Stripe in Singapore. The company used Stripe’s flexible SDKs to integrate payments into both its mobile app and website, making it easy for customers to book travel from any device.

With Payments, Airpaz can now easily turn on local payment methods as it enters new markets, such as the Netherlands, Singapore, and South Korea. Recognizing the popularity of buy now, pay later (BNPL) options in key regions, the company decided to offer BNPLs such as Klarna and digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, giving customers a faster and more secure checkout experience. Airpaz now accepts payments in multiple currencies, including USD, the South Korean won, and the Taiwan dollar.

At the same time, Airpaz adopted Stripe Radar for Fraud Teams to bolster its fraud prevention efforts using AI that’s trained on data across millions of global companies. With Radar for Fraud Teams, Airpaz could quickly identify fraudulent activity and create custom rules to safeguard against future fraud attempts. Radar for local payment methods extends Radar’s risk evaluation capabilities to Klarna and local payment methods to holistically address fraud and risk patterns across payment types. “Fraud is a huge challenge in the travel industry, and Radar for Fraud Teams makes it easier for our team to identify and respond to fraud, quickly writing rules to combat it,” said Buana.

Airpaz’s financial team uses the Stripe Dashboard to analyze daily cash flow, reconcile accounts, and track performance, enabling faster analysis and more informed strategic decision-making.

Results

Airpaz expands beyond Southeast Asia with Stripe

Since adding Payments, Airpaz has expanded beyond Southeast Asia to Australia, with plans for additional markets. The company has added six new payment methods and support for nine currencies.

Mobile-friendly digital wallets have been particularly successful. Apple Pay increased Airpaz’s payment volume by 20% and conversion rates by 5%.

Smooth implementation and reliable support strengthens partnership

Buana credits Stripe’s APIs, clear documentation, and responsive support for the company’s smooth integration process.

“Whether they’re suggesting new payment methods or ideas to improve our authorization rates, our Stripe account managers are far more responsive and collaborative than other vendors,” said Buana. “Stripe is available every time I reach out and provides us answers or advice very fast.”

Authorization rates rise 31% with Stripe

Airpaz’s authorization rates with Stripe are nearly 31% higher on several bank identification numbers (BINs) than authorization rates processed through other payment processors. “Improving authorization rates helps us recoup sales and increase profit margins, but most importantly, it means our customers are receiving a better booking experience for their travel,” said Buana.